by Alexandra Siy & photographed by Alexandra Siy & Dennis Kunkel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 2011
Striking as they are, as mug shots these bug shots don’t work.
Intriguing photographs taken through a scanning electron microscope accompany this detective-themed introduction to insects.
Siy (Sneeze, 2007, etc.) begins with her thesis, pointing out that in the insect world there are both good and bad guys. How can we tell the difference? The rest of this lighthearted survey is organized in chapters devoted to true bugs, beetles, butterflies and moths, bees, ants and wasps and, finally, true flies. In lively, informal prose, she describes some typical insect behavior, describing not just the harm they do but also the good. “Could insects be getting a bad rap?” A last chapter suggests that young people interested in insects can collect them without harming them using a digital camera. Kunkel colors his signature photomicrographs to highlight structures shown, and they are stunning. Each image has an informative label that includes its magnification. The design also includes tiny grayscale images that careful observers may be able to identify as housefly, bedbug, ladybird beetle, nasonia wasp and some kind of moth or butterfly. Readers unfamiliar with giant water bugs and water striders, lace bugs, pepper weevils, carrion beetles and other creatures will be bugged by the lack of unmagnified pictures of most of the species shown.
Striking as they are, as mug shots these bug shots don’t work. (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2286-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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by Meredith Hooper & illustrated by Lucia deLeiris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2001
Here is an adventure in a unique setting. The lively text and lovely watercolors document three and a half months of a summer the artist and author spent at the South Pole, as part of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists & Writers Program. Hooper describes everyday life aboard the research ship Laurence M. Gould, a sturdy orange icebreaker that scientists use to travel between the islands to study the wide variety of animals who come each year to breed and raise their young. An assortment of penguins, elephant seals, giant petrels, huge skuas, and leopard seals hold center stage. Scientists are less important than the serious business of successfully raising young in the short summer season. The author captures the drama of the ice-cold ocean, alive with life: “Swarms of barrel-shaped blue-tinged salps, stuck together in floating chains. Minute creatures with red eyes. Sliding through the water in a curving path like a ribbon.” The artist provides striking paintings of the landscape and the animals in soft washy colors, and quick pencil sketches. The ice is lemon gold with mauve shadows, and the sea a silver gray in the 24-hour day. Animals are expressive and individual. The krill, the tiny shrimp-like creatures that form the backbone of the ocean food chain, appear in luminous glory. The author concludes with a page on global warming, a map of the islands visited, and an index. From cover to cover a personal and informative journey. (Nonfiction. 7-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7922-7188-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
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by Meredith Hooper & illustrated by Bee Willey
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by Meredith Hooper & illustrated by Stephen Biesty
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by Hannah Bonner & illustrated by Hannah Bonner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 9, 2007
The author of When Bugs Were Big, Plants Were Strange, and Tetrapods Stalked the Earth (2003) continues her droll but dependable tour of deep prehistory, focusing here on the flora, fauna and fungi of the Silurian and Devonian Periods, approximately 360 to 44 million years ago. This was the time when larger forms of life began to emerge on land, while, among the far richer variety of marine animals, fish wriggled to the top, thanks to newly developed jaws which allowed them “to say good-bye to a monotonous diet of teensy stuff. Now fish could grab, slice and dice to their heart’s content.” By the end, soil, forests and, of course, feet had also appeared. Fearlessly folding in tongue-challenging names and mixing simply drawn reconstructions and maps with goofy flights of fancy—on the first spread Robin Mite and Friar Millipede are caught on a stroll through Sherwood Moss Patch, and on the last, genial nautiloid Amphicyrtoceras plugs the previous volume—Bonner serves up a second heaping course of science that will both stick to the ribs and tickle them. (index, resource lists, time line) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4263-0078-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
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