Well-intentioned but visually bland and textually inconsistent.
From guide dogs to therapy pigs, Everett introduces a small menagerie of service, therapy, and support animals.
In two sentences per page, the author describes such helpers as CAT, who snuggles with hospital patients; DOG, who helps blind and deaf people “to cross the road, get on the bus, and stay safe”; and DOG’S FRIEND, another dog who detects low blood sugar. Readers also meet lesser-known helpers such as SNAKE, who detects impending seizures, and MONKEY, who assists people who are paralyzed. With thick, rounded lines and large, simple figures, facing pages show each animal assisting or comforting a smiling human in a minimal, stylized setting. The humans’ complexions range from light to dark; their nearly identical smiles give their button-eyed faces an unfortunate, doll-like blankness. The author’s encouragement to “keep an eye out for opportunities to be a little helper yourself to someone in need!” does not include the common etiquette of asking permission before providing assistance. Awkwardly splitting different types of service dog into DOGS and OTHER DOGS, a glossary explains the featured critters’ tasks in more detail. These explanations are somewhat more complex than the primary text, rendering them inaccessible to younger readers—and although older children may appreciate the glossary, they may find the main text and illustrations too simplistic to hold their interest until then.
Well-intentioned but visually bland and textually inconsistent. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 8, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-544-87955-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
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
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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