A compelling introduction to a passionate and tenacious Chinese researcher.
A picture-book biography about the persistent Chinese researcher whose medical discovery has saved millions of lives.
In 1969 Tu Youyou, a researcher at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Beijing, was chosen to be a part of a research group to find a cure for chloroquine-resistant malaria. Spread by mosquitoes, this life-threatening disease was making people sick around the world. Using her subject’s given name, Daemicke describes how Youyou’s dedication to both traditional and modern medicines sprang from a life-changing battle with tuberculosis as a teen. In her search for a malaria cure, her observations and openness to traditional remedies led her to the plant qinghao (sweet wormwood). Many experiments failed, but her 191st experiment was finally successful! Youyou led her team to create the medicine artemisinin, also called qinghaosu in Chinese. Her contribution to the project was obscured for decades, but in 2015 she became the first Chinese woman to win a Nobel Prize. This inspiring picture-book biography provides a much-needed counterpoint to harmful Sinophobic rhetoric around the origins of Covid-19. Brief text focuses completely on the linear story of Youyou’s dedicated search for a malaria cure, with a mention that during her research, male researchers weren’t happy with her lack of results or her leadership. Round shapes and bright colors create inviting illustrations with cartoonish characters. Nearly all characters are depicted as Chinese.
A compelling introduction to a passionate and tenacious Chinese researcher. (bibliography, author’s note) (Picture book/biography. 5-9)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8075-8111-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
