Start your engines and get ready to take off for an amazing read.
Cars that fly? Only in stories like Harry Potter or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or fantasy films, right? Nope, flying cars have been in existence since the beginning of the 1900s. Who knew?
Author-illustrator Glass departs from the world of picture books (The Wondrous Whirligig, 2003, etc.) to apply his hand to long-form nonfiction. And what a high-flying job he has done. He devotes a chapter to each of 14 visionary men who believed they could prove that cars and planes could be fused into one flying machine. First was Gustave Whitehead, who designed a bird-shaped glider named the Condor in 1901; the last was Daniel Zuck, who predicted squadrons of commuters in Plane-Mobiles. The names of their machines were as imaginative as their inventions: Henry Ford’s Sky Flivver, Harold Pitcairn’s Autogiro, and Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion car are just a sampling. The fascinating details of the dangers and difficulties each man faced read smoothly and engagingly. Glass’ research is extensive and impeccable, and the archival black-and-white photos provide visual context. All in all, it’s a tremendous narrative-nonfiction debut for a creator who’s long been associated with the 32-page format.
Start your engines and get ready to take off for an amazing read. (author’s note, glossary, source notes, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-618-98482-4
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
Contentwise, an arbitrary assortment…but sure to draw fans of comics, of science, or of both.
Flash, Batman, and other characters from the DC Comics universe tackle supervillains and STEM-related topics and sometimes, both.
Credited to 20 writers and illustrators in various combinations, the 10 episodes invite readers to tag along as Mera and Aquaman visit oceanic zones from epipelagic to hadalpelagic; Supergirl helps a young scholar pick a science-project topic by taking her on a tour of the solar system; and Swamp Thing lends Poison Ivy a hand to describe how DNA works (later joining Swamp Kid to scuttle a climate-altering scheme by Arcane). In other episodes, various costumed creations explain the ins and outs of diverse large- and small-scale phenomena, including electricity, atomic structure, forensic techniques, 3-D printing, and the lactate threshold. Presumably on the supposition that the characters will be more familiar to readers than the science, the minilectures tend to start from simple basics, but the figures are mostly both redrawn to look more childlike than in the comics and identified only in passing. Drawing styles and page designs differ from chapter to chapter but not enough to interrupt overall visual unity and flow—and the cast is sufficiently diverse to include roles for superheroes (and villains) of color like Cyborg, Kid Flash, and the Latina Green Lantern, Jessica Cruz. Appended lists of websites and science-based YouTube channels, plus instructions for homespun activities related to each episode, point inspired STEM-winders toward further discoveries.
Contentwise, an arbitrary assortment…but sure to draw fans of comics, of science, or of both. (Graphic nonfiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77950-382-4
Page Count: 160
Publisher: DC
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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