Appealing storytelling conveys the importance of preparation and awareness for young hikers.
Two children enjoy a challenging hiking adventure with their parents.
In this informative and entertaining debut picture book for elementary school students, Alice (the story’s first-person narrator) and her younger brother, Jack, learn that their parents intend to take them on a hiking trip into the Grand Canyon. During four months of preparation, Mom and Dad enlist them in the planning. To help acclimate the group for the arduous climb, the White family takes daytime “practice hikes.” The four also go on a local overnight hiking trip to experience using their new gear and setting up camp. The rest of the tale focuses on the Grand Canyon adventure through Alice’s eyes. She learns about its history and culture, stargazes, crosses over the rushing Colorado River, meets other campers and a mule train, and traverses steep switchbacks to the bottom of the canyon and back up again. A notably polished collaboration between mother-and-daughter authors Schweitzer and Graves and illustrator Robinson, this simple but well-conceived story is framed around useful tips for safe, fun family outdoor trips, from the importance of planning and practice hikes to the value of protective gear for sudden changes in weather and “one step at a time” encouragement if a young adventurer becomes anxious. Robinson’s deft illustrations are colorful, illuminating, and lively, and the large, clear text is perfect for young readers. The aftermatter includes facts about Grand Canyon National Park and a resource bibliography.
Appealing storytelling conveys the importance of preparation and awareness for young hikers.Pub Date: April 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73631-060-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Opalave Publishing, LLC
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A serene, feel-good outing with a cozy, old-fashioned feel.
In this Japanese import, the first in a long-running series to appear in English, two girls ride bikes through a forest—with stops for clover-blossom tea and jam sandwiches.
It’s such a benign wood that Chirri and Chirra—depicted as a prim pair of identical twins with straight bob cuts—think nothing of sharing both a lunch spot and a nap beneath a tree with a bear and a rabbit. Moreover, at convenient spots along the way there is a forest cafe with a fox waiter plus “tables and chairs of all different size” to accommodate the diverse forest clientele, a bakery offering “bread in all different shapes and jam in all different colors,” and, just as the sun goes down, a forest hotel with similarly diverse keys and doors. That night a forest concert draws the girls and the hotel’s animal guests to their balconies to join in: “La-la-la, La-la-la. What a wonderful night in the forest!” Despite heavy doses of cute, the episode is saved from utter sappiness by the inclusive spirit of the forest stops and the delightfully unforced way that the girls offer greetings to a pair of honeybees at a tiny adjacent table in the cafe, show no anxiety at the spider dangling above their napping place, and generally accept their harmonious sylvan world as a safe and friendly place. Doi creates her illustrations with colored pencil, pastel, and crayon, crafting them to look like mid-20th-century lithographs.
A serene, feel-good outing with a cozy, old-fashioned feel. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59270-199-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Enchanted Lion Books
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With the right kid in the right mindset, this escape into ludicrous answers may yield some very real explorations.
Musician, singer/songwriter, and multimedia artist Fite takes a headlong dive into the world of the absurd.
After being introduced to a bucket that looks empty but is in fact “FULL of QUESTIONS,” readers are asked a number of them. “Why do seals clap?” “Why do kids lose their teeth?” “What are hot dogs (actually) made of?” Each question is accompanied by three or four potential answers of varying silliness (“Hot dogs are made of lost teeth”). Meanwhile, wild typography and design and supremely busy black-and-white images give the entire book an outsider artist vibe comfortable with its own finely controlled chaos. Kids who balk at the lack of colors may find that the sole two-page spread of vibrant hues and shades at the heart of the book more than makes up for the dearth elsewhere. While each answer is silly, the questions act as prompts that could, if shared with inquisitive youngsters eager for discussion, lead to larger conversations or fun writing projects. And aside from an out-of-place cutesy note to readers at the start (wherein the author describes himself as “100% pooky-pooky”), the title does a good job of respecting the intelligence and curiosity of its intended audience. Humans depicted are diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
With the right kid in the right mindset, this escape into ludicrous answers may yield some very real explorations. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-66591-831-2
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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