A terse, poignant, richly illustrated, all-too-common story.
An elegy for a songbird native to the island of Kaua‘i—once common, now vanished.
Explaining that the title is the Hawaiian word for “finished” or “all done,” Piedra and Joy retrace the history of a small bird whose song “filled the Island” for hundreds of thousands of years. A first wave of Polynesian settlers, followed by others, along with invasive species and diseases after Captain James Cook’s visit in 1778, forced a retreat into steadily vanishing forests and a decline in numbers until, after years of fruitless searches, the bird was officially declared extinct in 2021. In the illustrations, native species of several sorts (keyed by a labeled gallery at the end) pose in lush, misty tropical settings that give way to cultivated fields and then settled towns as a racially diverse population of human figures grows. Succinct verse, tinged with melancholy, brings the tale to a somber close: “One ‘ō‘ō left on the Island. / One ‘ō‘ō left in the world, still singing.” According to the closing timeline, an ‘ō‘ō was last seen in 1985 and last heard in 1987; thanks to a QR code in the backmatter, readers can hear the ‘ō‘ō’s liquid song…if only in a field recording.
A terse, poignant, richly illustrated, all-too-common story. (more information on the ‘ō‘ō, bibliography, websites) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781536219494
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another playful imagination-stretcher.
Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.
As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.
Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781339049052
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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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