A vibrant tribute that pops with strong feeling and riveting art.
A dramatic introduction to volcanic eruptions and those who study them.
“A rumble. / A tremble. / A grumble. / Growing, / growling, / getting hot. / When will it… // POP?!” Blast out, more like, as Chock depicts in grand, painted views of glowing lava bursting upward amid billowing clouds of hot gases from peaks around the Pacific Ocean’s Ring of Fire and elsewhere. In a mix of awed free verse and blocks of prose commentary, Beckerman looks back to notable ones of the past from Krakatoa to a 2022 blast in the Tonga Islands and pays tribute to the intrepid researchers (“Superheroes? Scientists”) who venture onto shoe-melting slopes to study these spectacular “megaphones / of magma.” Backmatter describes the five types of volcanic eruptions. The author discusses hydrothermal vents (which emit hot water rather than hot rock), spotlighting them as the places where life on our planet may have originated. She also directs nods to humongous Olympus Mons on Mars and volcanos elsewhere in the solar system. “Volcanoes / everywhere,” she concludes, are worthy of deep study for the clues they hold both to our past and to what is to come.
A vibrant tribute that pops with strong feeling and riveting art. (author’s and illustrator’s notes, further reading, the big questions that volcanologists are trying to answer, additional facts) (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781338874679
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe.
An introduction to gravity.
The book opens with the most iconic demonstration of gravity, an apple falling. Throughout, Herz tackles both huge concepts—how gravity compresses atoms to form stars and how black holes pull all kinds of matter toward them—and more concrete ones: how gravity allows you to jump up and then come back down to the ground. Gravity narrates in spare yet lyrical verse, explaining how it creates planets and compresses atoms and comparing itself to a hug. “My embrace is tight enough that you don’t float like a balloon, but loose enough that you can run and leap and play.” Gravity personifies itself at times: “I am stubborn—the bigger things are, the harder I pull.” Beautiful illustrations depict swirling planets and black holes alongside racially diverse children playing, running, and jumping, all thanks to gravity. Thorough backmatter discusses how Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity and explains Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. While at times Herz’s explanations may be a bit too technical for some readers, burgeoning scientists will be drawn in.
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668936849
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lighthearted first look at an increasingly useful skill.
Grown-ups may not be the only audience for this simple explanation of how algorithms work.
Taking a confused-looking hipster parent firmly in hand, a child first points to all the computers around the house (“Pro Tip: When dealing with grown-ups, don’t jump into the complicated stuff too fast. Start with something they already know”). Next, the child leads the adult outside to make and follow step-by-step directions for getting to the park, deciding which playground equipment to use, and finally walking home. Along the way, concepts like conditionals and variables come into play in street maps and diagrams, and a literal bug stands in for the sort that programmers will inevitably need to find and solve. The lesson culminates in an actual sample of very simple code with labels that unpack each instruction…plus a pop quiz to lay out a decision tree for crossing the street, because if “your grown-up can explain it, that shows they understand it!” That goes for kids, too—and though Spiro doesn’t take the logical next step and furnish leads to actual manuals, young (and not so young) fledgling coders will find plenty of good ones around, such as Get Coding! (2017), published by Candlewick, or Rachel Ziter’s Coding From Scratch (2018).
A lighthearted first look at an increasingly useful skill. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9781623543181
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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