Eloquent and informative.
An invitation to learn more about the largest living fish and to help in efforts to keep them from becoming extinct.
“They’re the biggest fish in the world, but they eat the smallest things in the sea.” In an appeal aimed largely at fledgling chapter-book readers, Sanchez begins with distinctive basic facts about whale sharks’ feeding habits (though “the size of a school bus,” they eat only plankton and “teeny minnows and sardines”), their need to travel far in search of food, and their ovoviviparous reproduction. She then explains how, between becoming disposable “bycatch” in commercial fishing and being harvested for their own meat, oil, and fins (for soup), their populations have dropped 50% over the past 75 years to the point that they have been designated as endangered. Another major threat, Sanchez notes, is floating plastic…and perhaps the most affecting passage here is her account of the 2019 discovery of a young whale shark that starved to death after a plastic bag clogged its digestive tract. Following this buildup, the author offers 11 helpful activities and measures for eco-activists, including, in a sign that this is not addressed just to younger audiences, a strong suggestion to register and vote for candidates who support environmental protections. In the book’s introduction, Clinton stresses that even small actions can make a real difference when it comes to helping the environment. The speckled giants, mouths agape, pose in a sparse assortment of murky black-and-white photos.
Eloquent and informative. (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-40426-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts.
From a Caldecott and Sibert honoree, an invitation to take a mind-expanding journey from the surface of our planet to the furthest reaches of the observable cosmos.
Though Chin’s assumption that we are even capable of understanding the scope of the universe is quixotic at best, he does effectively lead viewers on a journey that captures a sense of its scale. Following the model of Kees Boeke’s classic Cosmic View: The Universe in Forty Jumps (1957), he starts with four 8-year-old sky watchers of average height (and different racial presentations). They peer into a telescope and then are comically startled by the sudden arrival of an ostrich that is twice as tall…and then a giraffe that is over twice as tall as that…and going onward and upward, with ellipses at each page turn connecting the stages, past our atmosphere and solar system to the cosmic web of galactic superclusters. As he goes, precisely drawn earthly figures and features in the expansive illustrations give way to ever smaller celestial bodies and finally to glimmering swirls of distant lights against gulfs of deep black before ultimately returning to his starting place. A closing recap adds smaller images and additional details. Accompanying the spare narrative, valuable side notes supply specific lengths or distances and define their units of measure, accurately explain astronomical phenomena, and close with the provocative observation that “the observable universe is centered on us, but we are not in the center of the entire universe.”
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts. (afterword, websites, further reading) (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4623-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
An immersive dunk into a vast subject—and on course for shorter attention spans.
In the wake of Everything Awesome About Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Beasts! (2019), Lowery spins out likewise frothy arrays of facts and observations about sharks, whales, giant squid, and smaller but no less extreme (or at least extremely interesting) sea life.
He provides plenty of value-added features, from overviews of oceanic zones and environments to jokes, drawing instructions, and portrait galleries suitable for copying or review. While not one to pass up any opportunity to, for instance, characterize ambergris as “whale vomit perfume” or the clownfish’s protective coating as “snot armor,” he also systematically introduces members of each of the eight orders of sharks, devotes most of a page to the shark’s electroreceptive ampullae of Lorenzini, and even sheds light on the unobvious differences between jellyfish and the Portuguese man-of-war or the reason why the blue octopus is said to have “arms” rather than “tentacles.” He also argues persuasively that sharks have gotten a bad rap (claiming that more people are killed each year by…vending machines) and closes with pleas to be concerned about plastic waste, to get involved in conservation efforts, and (cannily) to get out and explore our planet because (quoting Jacques-Yves Cousteau) “People protect what they love.” Human figures, some with brown skin, pop up occasionally to comment in the saturated color illustrations. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 45% of actual size.)
An immersive dunk into a vast subject—and on course for shorter attention spans. (bibliography, list of organizations) (Nonfiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-35973-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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