This children’s travel book stokes curiosity and a spirit of adventure.
Fred the Snake and his friends explore the western United States in Cotton’s picture book.
First stop is Los Angeles, where Fred and friends visit a film set before taking a ski trip to Lake Tahoe. In Yosemite National Park, they rescue a wounded bird. An illicit plane ride over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is followed by a tour of Alcatraz. In Seattle, from the top of the Space Needle, they can see Vancouver, Canada. The crew then navigates around icebergs on a ship to Alaska. Finally, they fly to Hawaii, where they hula dance on Waikiki Beach, visit Pearl Harbor, and camp by the volcano Mauna Kea. Lemaire’s brightly hued cartoon illustrations manage to convey the details of the featured settings and the characters’ activities without overwhelming the pages. The story is written in rhyming verse, which is often forgivably silly but occasionally constraining to the point of treating some subjects reductively. For example, in Alaska, “The native people you may know, / were once called the Eskimo. / But better now, to avoid dispute, / please use Inuit and Aleut.” The text font is rather small and intricate, which might be challenging for younger readers. Each page includes a helpful color-coded header labeling the state and locality, making each place easy to find and revisit. The book’s best element is its balance of educational information and an entertaining tone.
This children’s travel book stokes curiosity and a spirit of adventure.Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781647047672
Page Count: 66
Publisher: Bublish, Incorporated
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again.
Cece loves asking “why” and “what if.”
Her parents encourage her, as does her science teacher, Ms. Curie (a wink to adult readers). When Cece and her best friend, Isaac, pair up for a science project, they choose zoology, brainstorming questions they might research. They decide to investigate whether dogs eat vegetables, using Cece’s schnauzer, Einstein, and the next day they head to Cece’s lab (inside her treehouse). Wearing white lab coats, the two observe their subject and then offer him different kinds of vegetables, alone and with toppings. Cece is discouraged when Einstein won’t eat them. She complains to her parents, “Maybe I’m not a real scientist after all….Our project was boring.” Just then, Einstein sniffs Cece’s dessert, leading her to try a new way to get Einstein to eat vegetables. Cece learns that “real scientists have fun finding answers too.” Harrison’s clean, bright illustrations add expression and personality to the story. Science report inserts are reminiscent of The Magic Schoolbus books, with less detail. Biracial Cece is a brown, freckled girl with curly hair; her father is white, and her mother has brown skin and long, black hair; Isaac and Ms. Curie both have pale skin and dark hair. While the book doesn’t pack a particularly strong emotional or educational punch, this endearing protagonist earns a place on the children’s STEM shelf.
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again. (glossary) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-249960-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
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
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