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RIVERS

Name: RIVERS
Author: Peter Goes
ISBN: 978-1-77657-216-8

A VISUAL HISTORY FROM RIVER TO SEA

by Peter Goes ; illustrated by Peter Goes ; translated by Bill Nagelkerke ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2018

A broad, shallow, teeming torrent of facts and marvels: Readers tempted to take a dip will be swept irresistibly along.

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A tour of the world’s great rivers, bedizened with hundreds of images and notes on regional geography, history, folklore, culture, and natural history.

Goes proceeds continent by continent in a series of grandly scaled—if, geographically, more impressionistic than precise—maps. They are aswirl with stylized humans (of different races and often in stereotypical garb) and more naturalistic renditions of iconic structures, vehicles, monsters, deities, geophysical features, and flocks of wildlife both marine and terrestrial. These lively, largely monochromatic visuals are glossed in printed blocks that bend as sinuously as the rivers around which they are arranged. The Belgian illustrator lingers longest over Europe, but, along with the usual riverine suspects there and elsewhere, he does map several that are less traveled in U.S. children’s books, such as Papua New Guinea’s Fly River, New Zealand’s Waikato, and the Onyx in Antarctica. Besides describing each river’s course from source to sea and highlighting select features, the author frequently wanders further afield to add factoids, personal opinions (“Belgian fries are the best in the world”), and even bits of fancy, such as the revelation that there is a “secret spot at the South Pole where snowballs winter over,” all via Nagelkerke’s translation from Flemish. Though generally positive in tone, he does mention “gyres” of “plastic soup” in the Pacific, oil spills in the Niger Delta, and that New Orleans was once “the country’s largest slave market.”

A broad, shallow, teeming torrent of facts and marvels: Readers tempted to take a dip will be swept irresistibly along. (Nonfiction. 7-11)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-77657-216-8

Page Count: 80

Publisher: Gecko Press

Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
FOLLOW FINN
by Peter Goes ; illustrated by Peter Goes ; translated by Bill Nagelkerke

- BOOK REVIEW
TIMELINE
by Peter Goes & Sylvia Vanden Heede ; illustrated by Peter Goes ; translated by Bill Nagelkerke

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1001 BEES

by Joanna Rzezak ; illustrated by Joanna Rzezak ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 18, 2021

Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.

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This book is buzzing with trivia.

Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.

Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)

Pub Date: May 18, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | CHILDREN'S ANIMALS

- BOOK REVIEW
1001 BIRDS
by Joanna Rzezak ; illustrated by Joanna Rzezak

- BOOK REVIEW
1001 ANTS
by Joanna Rzezak ; illustrated by Joanna Rzezak

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I AM GRAVITY

by Henry Herz ; illustrated by Mercè López ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 15, 2024

An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe.

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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)