A fact-filled but easily digestible skin cancer primer for ages 8–12.
In this informative children’s picture book, a young ball player squares off against the deadly carcinogen in the sky—the sun.
Standing in right field on a cloudless day, Charles is less worried about his Little League game than the hot sun beating down on him. His dermatologist dad has schooled Charles and his family in the perils of skin cancer caused by UV radiation in sunlight, so they’re all now paragons of solar vigilance: Charles’ sisters model the long sleeves, wide-brimmed hats and sunglasses that everyone over the age of 6 months should wear when outdoors, while his mother carefully takes shelter under an umbrella table. Yet as the game wears on, Charles suddenly notices his pinkening arms and cheeks; leaping into action, he dispenses an emergency ration of sunscreen to everyone on both teams. “ ‘Thanks, Charles,’ whispers Emily, the opposing player who makes his heart flutter; ‘You’ve saved the day.’ ” Barrow, a cancer education advocate, and Crutchfield, a University of Minnesota dermatology professor, weave an impressive amount of information about skin cancer around Charles’s small-scale heroics. Young readers will learn about the science of solar rays, how to recognize possibly cancerous spots on the skin, and how to use clothes, shade and sunscreen to protect themselves. Also, they’ll understand why tanning beds aren’t just a threat to health but a target of dermatological scorn. Sigmund’s storyboards and explanatory graphics are colorful and catchy, although Charles appears to be wearing a left-handed mitt on his right hand. The authors’ “SunAWARE” protocol is a rigorous one: apply sunscreen every two hours, cover up almost religiously and take meticulous notes about skin blemishes. It’s a lot to ask of kids, but the book distills these lessons into a useful, engaging teaching tool that should find a welcome place in homes, school libraries and pediatricians’ waiting rooms.
A fact-filled but easily digestible skin cancer primer for ages 8–12.Pub Date: June 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-1592984725
Page Count: 59
Publisher: Beaver's Pond Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An energetic yawp of entertaining wordplay and outlaw attitude.
Looking for a pungent stew with mysterious chunks of hip-hop culture, bizarre fantasia and yuppie angst? You’ll find it in this lurid mashup of experimental fiction and verse.
Maggots (Quickies, 2013) is the pseudonym of a physician with a yen for gangsta posturing and a deep bottom drawer that he has emptied out into this disjointed collection of brief feuilletons. To wit: a bro hanging with his “Filipina gangbangin’ bitches”; rap lyrics translated into nerd-speak (“Surely my criminal record involves more egregious felonies with an overall longer time of incarceration”); naturalistic short stories about alienation and sexual debauchery at a Caribbean medical school; and an enigmatic yarn that begins: “This is Hander Snatchrocket reporting from Seattle, Washington, USA, Milky Way Galaxy, Sector 17-3, Vortex Q7…where I’m reporting live undead.” Readers can also follow a rant about bad drivers in minivans; poems that veer from modernist word art (“But what a, what a but a, / Nut some butter and a tub of watta”) to postmodernist word art (“Hello? Dissociation? Dissociation? Dissociation? Dis-association”); reams of one-liners from a Facebook page; and a piece called “Vampirism and Necrophilia” that quite unnecessarily elaborates on the title. What holds this riotous tome together is its point of view—that of a smart, disaffected young man, ensconced in the well-heeled professional class yet yearning for the nihilism of the streets. Thus, readers get fantasies of tearing down the highway shooting at cops; Darwinian meditations on the theme of “Your Life Has no Meaning”; hymns to drugs (“Life wit_out _eroin— / Is t_at really life at all?”); and dirges to marriage (“To settle down is to give up and die”). Less convincingly, the book’s affirmative epiphany comes during an uncharacteristically mawkish sojourn at Burning Man, where the narrator discovers “caring, concerned, fun, intelligent, unbiased men and women” embedded in “an enlightened, socially and environmentally conscious international community.” Maggots has an arresting authorial voice, plenty of imagination, loads of verbal talent and wiseass verve—something like William S. Burroughs had he been an Iranian-American medical student straight outta Compton—but he’s also a fantastically undisciplined writer. Here’s hoping he yokes his literary brio to something more sustained and deeply thought through.
An energetic yawp of entertaining wordplay and outlaw attitude.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4923-6072-8
Page Count: 270
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
