Rich with learning experiences, Berkes’ book elegantly combines art, reading, counting and music with the natural sciences.
Based on Berkes and Canyon’s 2007 book, this new interactive counting and sing-along app is a snazzy introduction to the fauna of the rain forest.
Centering around the lush and colorful illustrations, each page introduces a new species with information on how the animal parents care for their young and often revealing a bit about their environment: The poison dart frogs appear in the bromeliads so important to their survival, for instance. The text is written in rhyme to fit the familiar tune and can be heard sung or read by the author; there is also a “Read to Myself” mode. Simple animations allow readers to set the animal babies in motion. Butterflies flutter and marmosets swing, each in their own stratum of the jungle. Emphasizing the many layers of habitat in the rain forest, the appended “Find the Babies” counting game shows where in the jungle each of the species makes its home. Further information on each animal, plus photos, follows, as do bios of each of the creators. The illustrator’s discussion of her techniques should appeal to young artists. It’s not quite as flawlessly interactive as the developer’s previous app, Over in the Ocean (2012); there are some bugs with page turns, and background music and jungle sounds often don’t play in “Read to Myself” mode.
Rich with learning experiences, Berkes’ book elegantly combines art, reading, counting and music with the natural sciences. (iPad informational app. 3-8)Pub Date: March 6, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dawn Publications
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2013
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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