A pleasant ramble and—culturally at least—considerably more rewarding than poring over crowd scenes in search of Waldo.
For the first time with notes in English, a reissue of the Japanese illustrator’s 2004 travelogue and tribute to Hans Christian Andersen.
As in the better-known Anno’s Journey (1978), the pleasure of paging through these wordless, broad-perspective aerial spreads lies both in spotting the author—visible in every scene—and in recognizing amid the hustle and bustle of tiny (white, where faces are visible) figures the many references to familiar folktales…or, in this case, Andersen stories, most of which will be new to (non-Danish) children. Fortunately, along with identifying the towns and cities represented, the author’s notes at the end include titles and capsule summaries of the tales depicted in each scene. Farmhouses, city streets, and waterfronts are drawn as Andersen might have known them, with people getting around on horseback or in carriages. The little mermaid (or her carved effigy) appears repeatedly, but the ugly duckling, an emperor wearing only underwear, servants piling mattresses over a pea, a mechanical nightingale and a natural one are there for sharp-eyed viewers to pick out. Also to be seen, as rural settings, cities, and the Tivoli Gardens come and go, are pirates, a dinosaur skeleton, Hamlet talking to his father’s ghost, and other side business aplenty.
A pleasant ramble and—culturally at least—considerably more rewarding than poring over crowd scenes in search of Waldo. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-893103-75-7
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Beautiful Feet
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit.
The bubble-helmeted feline explains what rockets do and the role they have played in sending people (and animals) into space.
Addressing a somewhat younger audience than in previous outings (Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, 2013, etc.), Astro Cat dispenses with all but a light shower of “factoroids” to describe how rockets work. A highly selective “History of Space Travel” follows—beginning with a crew of fruit flies sent aloft in 1947, later the dog Laika (her dismal fate left unmentioned), and the human Yuri Gagarin. Then it’s on to Apollo 11 in 1969; the space shuttles Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger (the fates of the latter two likewise elided); the promise of NASA’s next-gen Orion and the Space Launch System; and finally vague closing references to other rockets in the works for local tourism and, eventually, interstellar travel. In the illustrations the spacesuited professor, joined by a mouse and cat in similar dress, do little except float in space and point at things. Still, the art has a stylish retro look, and portraits of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford diversify an otherwise all-white, all-male astronaut corps posing heroically or riding blocky, geometric spacecraft across starry reaches.
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-911171-55-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A broad, if hardly more than skin-deep, introduction to the topic.
Four double-foldout spreads literally extend this first gander at our body’s insides and outsides—to jumbo, if not quite life, size.
Labels, basic facts, and one-sentence comments surround full-length cartoon images of the skeleton, musculature, and major sections of the body on the foldouts. Selected parts from the brain on down to blood cells are covered on the leaves in between. Lacey dishes out explanations of major body systems and processes in resolutely nontechnical language: “When you eat, food goes on a long twisty journey, zigzagging through tubes and turning into a soupy mush for your body to use.” It’s lightly spiced with observations that, for instance, the “gluteus maximus” is the largest muscle or the spine is made up of “vertebrae.” So light is the once-over, however, that the lymphatic, renal, and most of the endocrine systems escape notice (kidneys, where are you?). Moreover, though printed on durable card stock, the foldouts make for unwieldy handling, and on some pages, images are so scattered that successive stages of various processes require numbering. Still, Web links on the publisher’s page will presumably help to cover the gaps (unavailable for review). An overview of human development from fertilization to adulthood precedes a closing flurry of height extremes and other “Amazing body facts” that provide proper closure for this elementary survey.
A broad, if hardly more than skin-deep, introduction to the topic. (Nonfiction. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7945-3596-4
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Usborne
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
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