Practical, imaginative, magical fun.
Wizardly advice and instructions for creating inks and art from common and found ingredients.
Promising young hands-on types lots of “secret recipes, magic formulas, and wild experiments,” professional ink maker Logan begins with notes on safety and such necessary gear as a notebook (because a “secret recipe that you never write down will eventually become secret even to you”), plus a personality test titled “What Kind of Wizard Are You Today?” He then sends would-be wizards and chemists off to gather common ingredients from around the house and the outdoors for reasonably easy projects ranging from a “Wizard’s paintbrush wand” to simple demonstrations of rainbow making and chromatography, enhanced by thumbnail tributes to historical “Color Heroes” such as Isaac Newton and Shěn Kuó. He also offers clear, step-by-step instructions for transforming materials from leaves and berries to old pennies and rusted nails into inks and paints, mostly water-based, in a wide variety of colors and then using them to make art and party decorations. Brightly hued photos both on their own and in montages feature close-up views of supplies in raw and finished states. They also depict busy, focused, diverse young children. “Dress to get dirty,” the author writes, also cautioning that “the path to real magic is not straight but winding.” Wise words.
Practical, imaginative, magical fun. (index) (Nonfiction. 6-10)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9781536229400
Page Count: 176
Publisher: MIT Kids Press/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
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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