A lucid description of the solar system, grounded in concepts that young readers can grasp, and exquisitely illustrated. Alvin Jenkins was a professor of astronomy, and he takes a journey that begins with the creation of a star and continues through each planet, its moons, asteroids, and other features in our immediate space. There’s a narrative that describes what it would be like to land on each planet, its physical features and its characteristics. Captions and capsule paragraphs add to that information. Jenkins père conveys the immensity of the solar system in imaginative ways: for each planet, he notes how long it would take to drive there; to illustrate distances, he uses the image of the Sun as a basketball, the earth as a pea, and a mile-and-a-half of distance. The pictures are made of paper collage—the Sun of marbled paper, clouds as torn rice paper, and so on—which in the hands of Jenkins fils turns out to be an excellent way of making the images work. A white font and brilliantly colored collages set on a black background make this a dramatic presentation also. A terrific experience indeed. (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-618-41603-X
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2004
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care.
In 1977, the oil carrier Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into a formerly pristine Alaskan ocean inlet, killing millions of birds, animals, and fish. Despite a cleanup, crude oil is still there.
The Winters foretold the destructive powers of the atomic bomb allusively in The Secret Project (2017), leaving the actuality to the backmatter. They make no such accommodations to young audiences in this disturbing book. From the dark front cover, on which oily blobs conceal a seabird, to the rescuer’s sad face on the back, the mother-son team emphasizes the disaster. A relatively easy-to-read and poetically heightened text introduces the situation. Oil is pumped from the Earth “all day long, all night long, / day after day, year after year” in “what had been unspoiled land, home to Native people // and thousands of caribou.” The scale of extraction is huge: There’s “a giant pipeline” leading to “enormous ships.” Then, crash. Rivers of oil gush out over three full-bleed wordless pages. Subsequent scenes show rocks, seabirds, and sea otters covered with oil. Finally, 30 years later, animals have returned to a cheerful scene. “But if you lift a rock… // oil / seeps / up.” For an adult reader, this is heartbreaking. How much more difficult might this be for an animal-loving child?
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 9-12)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3077-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Despite a bit of bumpiness, Hope is a likable and inspiring kid who never gives up.
Aspiring scientist Hope Roberts is starting her first day at JFK Middle School, where her advanced classes will separate her from her best friend, Sam Bowers, for the first time.
Though the friends make a pact to keep close, different classes and extracurricular interests forge a distance. After surviving the first week of middle school, Hope joins the science club, which is given the immediate task of preparing for the year’s first science competition. Though Hope and her new friend, Camila Rivera, conceive the robotics coding idea for the competition project, the boys mostly dominate the actualization of the project. The girls express their frustration to each other, but they continue on as team players. Hope gets so caught up in trying to prove the boys wrong that her anxiety leads to the destruction of the entire project. Hope’s supportive parents offer her the insight she needs to face her mistakes and work through them. A diverse cast is depicted via illustrations and naming convention. Biracial (black/white) Hope is illustrated with brown skin and “big hair” (referred to multiple times, once in tandem with her dog). Sam has pale skin, and Camilla declares Guatemalan heritage. Hope fumbles by stereotyping Camilla as an assumed Spanish speaker; the authors arguably make the same gaffe by casting Señora Lopez, the Spanish teacher, with swaying hoop earrings.
Despite a bit of bumpiness, Hope is a likable and inspiring kid who never gives up. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-32940-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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