A moving, memorable book that washes over readers with a call to stewardship.
Once one of the largest lakes on Earth, the Aral Sea has all but vanished from the map.
At the end of the Ice Age, melting glaciers form the great Aral Sea between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The people call it “Mother Sea,” though it’s really a massive freshwater lake. Mother Sea offers her people the biggest fish to eat, provides them with clean water to drink, and lends her banks to bustling cities. But eager for more, the people take and take Mother Sea’s resources until nothing remains of the great lake but a vast desert whose soil is filled with toxins. In spare, thought-provoking prose, this microhistory of the Aral Sea delivers a cautionary tale about the consequences of exploiting our planet. Rendered in blues and sandy browns, Mirtalipova’s striking pastel illustrations lend the story a swirling, fairy-tale quality, while swaths of arresting red mark the moment the people begin to drain the sea’s abundance, shifting the tone from dreamy to foreboding. Minimalist storytelling and in-depth backmatter work in tandem to create a book that will speak to a wide range of readers as it highlights the devastating loss of such a resource in only a few decades. Illustrated figures are Central Asian with brown skin and dark hair; an author’s note includes photos of Mirtalipova’s own family, hailing from Uzbekistan.
A moving, memorable book that washes over readers with a call to stewardship. (timeline) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781797224596
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
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
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