The author’s evident enthusiasm for his subject provides plenty of revs, but the road’s so rocky that his audience(s) will...
A high school chemistry teacher takes a quick spin past the periodic table of elements, but he’s not going to entice many passengers to come along for the ride.
Not to say he doesn’t try. With the same insouciance that lit up his text for Basher’s Periodic Table: Elements with Style! (2010)—but also covering some of the same territory—Dingle highlights the central roles elements play in nature (“I’m Gonna Make You a Star”), technology (“Fun with Fireworks!”) and our daily lives (“The Chemistry of Fizz-ics”). After opening with the full table and an explanation of its organization, though, he goes on to cover only a select few elements in any detail in the following single-topic spreads. Furthermore, teenage readers will likely find the breezy tone and loud colors babyish, but younger ones will bog down in the author’s relatively knotty explanations of molecular structure and bonding, formulas describing chemical changes, and specialized terminology that is briefly defined in context but not included in either the glossary or index. Moreover, he plays fast and loose with his facts—pine cones are not “tree seeds,” magnetic compasses do not point “due north,” carbon dioxide is not found just in certain layers of the atmosphere, and stridently claiming that glass is not a liquid isn’t the same as proving it.
The author’s evident enthusiasm for his subject provides plenty of revs, but the road’s so rocky that his audience(s) will bail. (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-77147-008-7
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The Pumpkin Book (32 pp.; $16.95; Sept. 15; 0-8234-1465-5): From seed to vine and blossom to table, Gibbons traces the growth cycle of everyone’s favorite autumn symbol—the pumpkin. Meticulous drawings detail the transformation of tiny seeds to the colorful gourds that appear at roadside stands and stores in the fall. Directions for planting a pumpkin patch, carving a jack-o’-lantern, and drying the seeds give young gardeners the instructions they need to grow and enjoy their own golden globes. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-8234-1465-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
Who is next in the ocean food chain? Pallotta has a surprising answer in this picture book glimpse of one curious boy. Danny, fascinated by plankton, takes his dory and rows out into the ocean, where he sees shrimp eating those plankton, fish sand eels eating shrimp, mackerel eating fish sand eels, bluefish chasing mackerel, tuna after bluefish, and killer whales after tuna. When an enormous humpbacked whale arrives on the scene, Danny’s dory tips over and he has to swim for a large rock or become—he worries’someone’s lunch. Surreal acrylic illustrations in vivid blues and red extend the story of a small boy, a small boat, and a vast ocean, in which the laws of the food chain are paramount. That the boy has been bathtub-bound during this entire imaginative foray doesn’t diminish the suspense, and the facts Pallotta presents are solidly researched. A charming fish tale about the one—the boy—that got away. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-88106-075-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
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