by Aimée M. Bissonette ; illustrated by Adèle Leyris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2021
Dive in for a new angle on a popular topic.
All over the world, ships sunk accidentally or purposefully have become shelters for marine life and frames for new coral reefs.
This colorful addition to the Imagine This! series came out of the writer’s encounter with sunken ships, tanks, and fighter planes around the island of Saipan in the western Pacific, relics from World War II now protected in an area that welcomes divers. After introducing the idea of reefs growing on sunken ships, Bissonette provides clear explanations of the formation and composition of coral reefs, how algae and coral work together, how the reefs become neighborhoods of varied fish species, and how they’re threatened by global climate change. She includes information about other artificial reefs, including those forming on retired oil and gas rigs and sunken subway cars. She points out that artificial reef construction in more northern latitudes can help keep coral growing in warming seas. Adding more reefs to the world can also help ease the pressures of fishing and tourism that endanger these fragile ecosystems. The exposition might be challenging for the audience but it’s straightforward and direct, supplemented with extra information in a smaller font and set on Leyris’ watery underwater scenes, mostly double-page spreads full of corals, sponges, tubeworms, anemones, barnacles, and fish. Like the text, they invite exploration of a watery “world of wonder."
Dive in for a new angle on a popular topic. (author's note, additional reading) (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8075-1287-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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by Joanna Rzezak ; illustrated by Joanna Rzezak ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 18, 2021
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
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by Mike Lowery ; illustrated by Mike Lowery ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 2021
A quick flight but a blast from first to last.
A charged-up roundup of astro-facts.
Having previously explored everything awesome about both dinosaurs (2019) and sharks (2020), Lowery now heads out along a well-traveled route, taking readers from the Big Bang through a planet-by-planet tour of the solar system and then through a selection of space-exploration highlights. The survey isn’t unique, but Lowery does pour on the gosh-wow by filling each hand-lettered, poster-style spread with emphatic colors and graphics. He also goes for the awesome in his selection of facts—so that readers get nothing about Newton’s laws of motion, for instance, but will come away knowing that just 65 years separate the Wright brothers’ flight and the first moon landing. They’ll also learn that space is silent but smells like burned steak (according to astronaut Chris Hadfield), that thanks to microgravity no one snores on the International Space Station, and that Buzz Aldrin was the first man on the moon…to use the bathroom. And, along with a set of forgettable space jokes (OK, one: “Why did the carnivore eat the shooting star?” “Because it was meteor”), the backmatter features drawing instructions for budding space artists and a short but choice reading list. Nods to Katherine Johnson and NASA’s other African American “computers” as well as astronomer Vera Rubin give women a solid presence in the otherwise male and largely White cast of humans. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A quick flight but a blast from first to last. (Informational picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-35974-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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