Nosy fun conveyed in verse that can induce wincing.
Twelve different animal noses lead to 12 short, versified identifications of each animal and a few facts about it.
Two gray, furry legs with long, dark claws reach into a stretch of stark white space on the first verso. On the recto is an enormous, realistically portrayed black nose protruding from a white, whiskered, foreshortened snout. A pink tongue and the bottoms of dark eyes are also visible. A strip of white frame underneath sports the boldly lettered question of the title. The next page shows a group of meerkats standing upright in an ochre desert. The text shows the animal name and then resorts to rhyming couplets to explain: “In faraway Africa, you will find this nose / where it’s dusty and dry and not much grows.” A few more lines describe the meerkat’s claws, burrow, and speed, with stumbling syllabic emphases (“marvelous eyesight” rhymes with “the cold desert night”). The layout, painterly artwork, and repeated litany of the title line work beautifully together throughout. The attempted poetry is a detractor, twice exoticizing Africa, sometimes substituting banality for facts to create a couplet, and sometimes resorting to absurdly stretched near rhymes. Readers will find themselves wishing Turner had chosen to write this in straight text. The idea is an original way to introduce the youngest children to different kinds of animals, and preschoolers will enjoy the interaction of guessing each animal before the turn of the page.
Nosy fun conveyed in verse that can induce wincing. (Informational picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-76036-062-7
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Starfish Bay
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
A $16.99 Mother’s Day card for cat lovers.
The team of Costain and Lovšin (Daddies are Awesome, 2016) gives moms their due.
Rhyming verses tell of all the ways moms are amazing: “Mommies are magic. / They kiss away troubles… // …find gold in the sunlight / and rainbows in bubbles.” Moms are joyful—the best playmates. They are also fearless and will protect and soothe if you are scared. Clever moms know just what to do when you’re sad, sporty moms run and leap and climb, while tender moms cuddle. “My mommy’s so special. / I tell her each day… // … just how much I love her / in every way!” Whereas dads were illustrated with playful pups and grown-up dogs in the previous book, moms are shown as cats with their kittens in myriad colors, sizes, and breeds. Lovšin’s cats look as though they are smiling at each other in their fun, though several spreads are distractingly cut in half by the gutter. However delightful the presentation—the verse rolls fairly smoothly, and the cats are pretty cute—the overall effect is akin to a cream puff’s: very sweet and insubstantial.
A $16.99 Mother’s Day card for cat lovers. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62779-651-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
So rocket science can be fun.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
If they haven’t already thought about their futures (and they probably haven’t), toddlers and preschoolers might start planning after perusing this cheerful first guide to scientific careers. Plump-cheeked, wide-eyed tykes with various skin and hair colors introduce different professions, including zoologist, meteorologist, aerospace engineer, and environmental scientist, depicted with cues to tip readers off to what the jobs entail. The simple text presents the sometimes-long, tongue-twisting career names while helpfully defining them in comprehensible terms. For example, an environmental scientist “helps take care of our world,” and a zoologist is defined as someone who “studies how animals behave.” Scientists in general are identified as those who “study, learn, and solve problems.” Such basic language not only benefits youngsters, but also offers adults sharing the book easy vocabulary with which to expand on conversations with kids about the professions. The title’s ebullient appearance is helped along by the typography: The jobs’ names are set in all caps, printed in color and in a larger font than the surrounding text, and emphasized with exclamation points. Additionally, the buoyant watercolors feature clues to what scientists in these fields work with, such as celestial bodies for astronomers. The youngest listeners won’t necessarily get all of this, but the book works as a rudimentary introduction to STEM topics and a shoutout to scientific endeavors.
So rocket science can be fun. (Informational picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-62354-149-1
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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