A heaping helping of natural history, delivered with a wink.
An invitation to step into a small but bustling ecosystem.
“Fresh bison pie!” exclaims one dung beetle as it climbs onto a newly deposited pile of poop. “The perfect place to raise a family,” chortles another. “Dung for dinner!” “And dessert!” Young readers may not be so thrilled by the fecal find. But as they follow events on and under the melting brown bounty in Hevron’s close-up digital collages from one spring to the next over the course of a year, they’ll quickly be caught up in wonder. Flies swarm, meadowlarks and other hungry predators fly in for the insect banquet, pretty prairie violets and other wildflowers spring up, butterflies flutter, and prairie dogs burrow beneath (“Mmm, these roots are tangy!”). After eight months of “sunshine and showers,” the poo pile has become “a bouquet of…fragrant flowers, graceful grasses, and three thousand flies, beetles, and biters.” Winter brings a slower tempo for residents, identified in a final group portrait, and the following spring, mama bison is back…with a new little pooper in tow. Hevron blends whimsy and science for an enchanting and much-needed reminder that complex ecosystems can be found in the most unlikely of places. It’s all a grand cycle, laid out beautifully in the engaging art and recapped in an afterword that includes a tally of North American prairie habitats where viewers can watch things play out in real life.
A heaping helping of natural history, delivered with a wink. (additional reading, selected sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781665935029
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again.
Cece loves asking “why” and “what if.”
Her parents encourage her, as does her science teacher, Ms. Curie (a wink to adult readers). When Cece and her best friend, Isaac, pair up for a science project, they choose zoology, brainstorming questions they might research. They decide to investigate whether dogs eat vegetables, using Cece’s schnauzer, Einstein, and the next day they head to Cece’s lab (inside her treehouse). Wearing white lab coats, the two observe their subject and then offer him different kinds of vegetables, alone and with toppings. Cece is discouraged when Einstein won’t eat them. She complains to her parents, “Maybe I’m not a real scientist after all….Our project was boring.” Just then, Einstein sniffs Cece’s dessert, leading her to try a new way to get Einstein to eat vegetables. Cece learns that “real scientists have fun finding answers too.” Harrison’s clean, bright illustrations add expression and personality to the story. Science report inserts are reminiscent of The Magic Schoolbus books, with less detail. Biracial Cece is a brown, freckled girl with curly hair; her father is white, and her mother has brown skin and long, black hair; Isaac and Ms. Curie both have pale skin and dark hair. While the book doesn’t pack a particularly strong emotional or educational punch, this endearing protagonist earns a place on the children’s STEM shelf.
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again. (glossary) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-249960-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
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