A good introduction to starling murmurations, though readers will need to fill in the gaps.
Discover the magic of a murmuration of starlings.
Just two starlings open the book one morning. They are chilly and restless, taking off and joining other starlings. Flying for days, the flock continues to grow as Martin’s illustrations get more and more crowded: hundreds, thousands, millions. They have become a murmuration of starlings, seeking warmth and safety in their huge numbers. Each bird in the flock has allies—those birds flying closest to them—and by paying attention to only their allies, the birds can fly in complex patterns and avoid predators without flying into each other. As sunset nears, the starlings twist and dance in the sky, making ribbons and snakes. And then, all at once, they land to feed and roost. The backmatter offers more info about starlings, but it’s incomplete, lacking a map or any description of habitat. Martin tinges his watercolor, pencil, and digital collage illustrations with the oranges, pinks, yellows, and reds of the setting sun, but this makes the timeline confusing since the birds take off in the morning, fly for days, and roost at sunset. He does, however, provide a marvelous sense of scale, placing tiny humans under the flock and showing an enormous ribbon of birds above what in real life are huge windmills. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A good introduction to starling murmurations, though readers will need to fill in the gaps. (Informational picture book. 3-8)Pub Date: May 9, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-38163-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House Studio
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on.
Sharpson offers so-fish-ticated readers a heads up about the true terror of the seas.
The title says it all. Our unseen narrator is just fine with other animals: mammals. Reptiles. Even birds. But fish? Don’t trust them! First off, the rules always seem to change with fish. Some live in fresh water; some reside in salt water. Some have gills, while others have lungs. You can never see what they’re up to, since they hang out underwater, and they’re always eating those poor, innocent crabs. Soon, the narrator introduces readers to Jeff, a vacant-eyed yellow fish—but don’t be fooled! Jeff’s “the craftiest fish of all.” All fish are, apparently, hellbent on world domination, the narrator warns. “DON’T TRUST FISH!” Finally, at the tail end, we get a sly glimpse of our unreliable narrator. Readers needn’t be ichthyologists to appreciate Sharpson’s meticulous comic timing. (“Ships always sink at sea. They never sink on land. Isn’t that strange?”) His delightful text, filled to the brim with jokes that read aloud brilliantly, pairs perfectly with Santat’s art, which shifts between extreme realism and goofy hilarity. He also fills the book with his own clever gags (such as an image of Gilligan’s Island’s S.S. Minnow going down and a bottle of sauce labeled “Surly Chik’n Srir’racha’r”).
A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780593616673
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
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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