A decent overview that’s more approachable than a textbook.
A basic introduction to the properties and measurement of sound.
A short-haired, brown-skinned child and a dog with a bandanna around its neck serve as cheerful guides through informal informational text and textured, cartoon illustrations. Everyday scenes, like a busy city street, appear alongside more fanciful ones, like a dog-versus-child drag race. Descriptions of various sounds lead into explanations of sound’s forms and functions as well as related facts about animals (for example, bats use echolocation) and prompts for experiments that readers can do on their own (like feeling for vibrations in your neck when you hum). Concentric circles and repeated curves help readers spot sound waves in every situation. The content is broader than it is deep: While it doesn’t contain a complete physical description of a pressure wave, for instance, it does have a simple basic explanation of how sounds travel from the world into our brains. It doesn’t diagram human inner ear bones, either, but it does feature a nifty graph of the hearing ranges of 12 different animals. One notable misstep is the spread about decibels, which fails to communicate that this measure of sound’s power doesn’t increase in linear fashion; 20 dB is not 10 plus louder than 10 dB, but 10 times louder. That’s pretty important for readers trying to follow the recommendation “To keep your ears safe, stay away from really loud noise”! (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A decent overview that’s more approachable than a textbook. (activity, glossary) (Informational picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0250-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.
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
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
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