Clumsy propaganda for those already in the target audience.
Apparently, transgender people don’t exist.
After an author’s note stating that “You might be able to change the clothes you wear, but nothing can change your God-given, biological sexual identity,” this picture-book screed opens with a boy teasing a girl: “If you keep playing with the boys, you will turn into a boy!” Their teacher uses this as a springboard to explain that gender is “God’s good gift.” Chromosomes are “a code that says you are a boy and a code that says you are a girl,” and “God is the one who chooses your code.” The leadenly expository text whirls through original sin and the crucifixion, citing select bits of Scripture, lecturing that “God gave us our gender as a special gift, and God never makes mistakes.” There’s mention about how gender stereotypes are misguided, but only as a means of dismissing transgender identities. Backmatter references intersex conditions, claiming, horrifyingly, that “Because of the fall, a very small percentage of people are born with genetic disorders. Some of those disorders would affect a person’s sexual characteristics.” Crude, unartful, apparently computer-generated illustrations show a multiracial cast, including brown Bible characters. The admonition to love people despite their so-called gender confusion could possibly be considered harm reduction, but while the text does not advocate for violence or exclusion, it remains an attack on a marginalized population.
Clumsy propaganda for those already in the target audience. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64507-031-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: New Growth Press
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit.
The bubble-helmeted feline explains what rockets do and the role they have played in sending people (and animals) into space.
Addressing a somewhat younger audience than in previous outings (Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, 2013, etc.), Astro Cat dispenses with all but a light shower of “factoroids” to describe how rockets work. A highly selective “History of Space Travel” follows—beginning with a crew of fruit flies sent aloft in 1947, later the dog Laika (her dismal fate left unmentioned), and the human Yuri Gagarin. Then it’s on to Apollo 11 in 1969; the space shuttles Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger (the fates of the latter two likewise elided); the promise of NASA’s next-gen Orion and the Space Launch System; and finally vague closing references to other rockets in the works for local tourism and, eventually, interstellar travel. In the illustrations the spacesuited professor, joined by a mouse and cat in similar dress, do little except float in space and point at things. Still, the art has a stylish retro look, and portraits of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford diversify an otherwise all-white, all-male astronaut corps posing heroically or riding blocky, geometric spacecraft across starry reaches.
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-911171-55-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A rendition more poignant than patriotic with, at least in the rhymed portions, the cadence of a lullaby.
An illustrated version of the ever popular Scottish “Skye Boat Song,” with added lyrics and historical background.
Written in the 19th century (and set to a folk melody), the verses commemorate the flight of Bonnie Prince Charlie, then in his mid-20s, from the 1746 battle of Culloden. They begin after a prose introduction that sets the scene and follows the fugitive until—disguised (according to legend) as resourceful cottager Flora MacDonald’s maidservant—he escapes in a boat to the Isle of Skye. Along with a closing note, the anonymous modern co-author also adds a near ambush by British troops to the storyline in the lyrics and tones down the martial closing lines to a milder “Rightfully king! True hearts will stay / Faithful for evermore!” There is no visible blood or explicit violence in Belli’s depictions of the battle and its aftermath, but in the clean-lined watercolor scenes he fashions evocatively rough seas and stormy skies until landfall brings a final calm. The British soldiers’ red coats and the bright tartans in which the handsome, downcast prince and other male Scots in the all-white cast are outfitted shine against the muted backgrounds.
A rendition more poignant than patriotic with, at least in the rhymed portions, the cadence of a lullaby. (map) (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78250-367-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Floris
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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