A fascinating story curiously told.
A whale that died off Canada’s East Coast gets a new life as an exhibit in a West Coast museum.
In 1987, when a dead blue whale washed up on Prince Edward Island, she was buried, in hopes that time would reduce her to a skeleton. Twenty years later, when a crew from the Beaty Biodiversity Museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, came to investigate, it turned out that the clay soil had not done its work. It was humans who unearthed her, stripped flesh, power-washed bones, used degreasing solvents and vapor to remove rancid oil inside the bones, restored and reassembled the skeleton. Big Blue’s bones now hang without an external frame, an 85-foot skeletal centerpiece for the museum since 2010. Miettunen, a museum volunteer, has chosen to tell this unusual story in three ways. First she recounts the events as a bland, lightly fictionalized present-tense text accompaniment to striking color photographs. Then there’s more-challenging exposition of “the true story,” illustrated with smaller photographs showing the process step by step. Finally, there are backmatter sections including short biographies of the team and extensive blue whale facts. The result is a curious hybrid of picture book, museum catalog, and natural-history nonfiction which may puzzle its readers but might also draw a wider audience through its varied approach.
A fascinating story curiously told. (author’s note, resources, credits, bibliography) (Informational picture book/nonfiction. 5-12)Pub Date: June 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-88995-542-4
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Red Deer Press
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.
This book is buzzing with trivia.
Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet and endearing feathered migration.
A relationship between a Latina grandmother and her mixed-race granddaughter serves as the frame to depict the ruby-throated hummingbird migration pattern.
In Granny’s lap, a girl is encouraged to “keep still” as the intergenerational pair awaits the ruby-throated hummingbirds with bowls of water in their hands. But like the granddaughter, the tz’unun—“the word for hummingbird in several [Latin American] languages”—must soon fly north. Over the next several double-page spreads, readers follow the ruby-throated hummingbird’s migration pattern from Central America and Mexico through the United States all the way to Canada. Davies metaphorically reunites the granddaughter and grandmother when “a visitor from Granny’s garden” crosses paths with the girl in New York City. Ray provides delicately hashed lines in the illustrations that bring the hummingbirds’ erratic flight pattern to life as they travel north. The watercolor palette is injected with vibrancy by the addition of gold ink, mirroring the hummingbirds’ flashing feathers in the slants of light. The story is supplemented by notes on different pages with facts about the birds such as their nest size, diet, and flight schedule. In addition, a note about ruby-throated hummingbirds supplies readers with detailed information on how ornithologists study and keep track of these birds.
A sweet and endearing feathered migration. (bibliography, index) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0538-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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