Takes too many liberties with the facts, for all that the tribute is well deserved.
A celebration of the iconic sled dog who led a medical rescue mission to Nome, Alaska, in 1925.
Balto the sled dog still gets the press, but Togo did more of the work—leading a team that carried diphtheria serum through storm and over ice on one long, dangerous leg of a 674-mile relay mission. But the entire team’s intrepid spirit and strength of doggy character—which Robert J. Blake portrayed so compellingly in his 2002 Togo—is at best only fitfully present here. The golden, stubby-legged pooch in the painted illustrations doesn’t look anything like the noble figure in the closing photos, and, when they’re not lounging at ease in the Alaska wilderness, dining on fish elegantly served on dinner plates, the team’s dogs are depicted merrily mushing along beneath clear, high skies over a neatly plowed path or even somehow upright on a vertical cliff, harking perhaps back to a previous reference to “curvy landscapes.” And though the afterword has details about sled dogs in general and Togo’s later life in particular, the author admits that one incident she’s depicted to demonstrate his intelligence actually occurred on an earlier, unrelated journey. Togo’s owner was white, but there is some racial variation in scenes depicting the crowds that flocked to see him on a subsequent tour of the U.S.
Takes too many liberties with the facts, for all that the tribute is well deserved. (sources) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780316335447
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another playful imagination-stretcher.
Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.
As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.
Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781339049052
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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