Light on informational payload but a blast for display or demonstration.
A lunar flyby, with notes on our largest satellite’s origins, phases, and tidal effects enhanced by pop-ups.
As in its predecessor, Pop-Up Earth (2021), paper engineer Charbonnel’s 3-D constructs are showstoppers that make the narrative text and the flat illustrations come off as afterthoughts. Still, though author Jankéliowitch leaves special terms like umbra and penumbra undefined, she does cover lunar basics (including comparisons with select moons orbiting other planets) in simple language. Similarly, if the human faces are White in all but one of illustrator Buxton’s scenes, her maps and diagrammatic views of the moon as it orbits between the sun and Earth are clean and easy to understand. As the final spread on the Apollo missions includes no mention of later developments, readers will come away uninformed of current plans for return visits, which is a shame. Still, after taking ganders at the huge planetary collision at the opening, the astronaut waving through the large clear plastic screen of an antique TV from the moon’s surface at the close, and the spectacular constructs in between, they may well be tempted into the orbit of Elaine Scott’s Our Moon (2016) to find out the full story.
Light on informational payload but a blast for display or demonstration. (Informational pop-up picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-500-65186-5
Page Count: 18
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Playful measures and matches, whether measured in inches or dinosaurs.
Answers for anyone who has ever wondered whether a horse is faster than a hare or what the weight of a blue whale is—in tyrannosaurs.
In a mix of infographics and captions, both of which incorporate units of measure conventional and otherwise, each spread brings together assorted animals, weather phenomena, record setters, very big machines, or other thematically linked images or items as invitations to make comparisons. Along with being drawn reasonably close to scale, the figures are positioned to make those comparisons easy. They also often incorporate visual expressions of certain measures so that viewers can instantly contrast, for instance, the heights of the Empire State Building and the Burj Khalifa or the amount of water in a typical cat, dog, human (both baby and grown-up), cactus, and wedge of cheddar. Where humans are involved, as in lineups showing stages of development from newborn on or the seven children (one in a wheelchair) that measure up to one triceratops, Seixas consciously mixes gender presentations, races, and ages. Much of the information in the art and in Gifford’s quick comments looks to be averages or estimates—and is hard to check since sources go unmentioned. Still, this considerably streamlined spinoff of his The Book of Comparisons, illustrated by Paul Boston (2018), will clue younger audiences in to diverse ways of sizing up the world around them.
Playful measures and matches, whether measured in inches or dinosaurs. (Informational picture book. 7-9.)Pub Date: June 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68464-086-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A well-turned tale with flashes of insight.
An illuminating study of the visionary inventor’s tumultuous life and equally stormy career.
In a portrait powered by twin themes of electricity and obsession, Dockray retraces Tesla’s life from birth (during a thunderstorm) and early youth (wandering about his family’s yard with nose in a book about, presciently, Niagara Falls) to the lighting of the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 and the opening of the massive alternating-current hydroelectric project at, yes, Niagara Falls in 1895. She then closes with a quick list of his other inventions over a view of him speeding past in the modern electric car that bears his name. In an afterword (set in small type) she suggests that his behavior points to an “autism spectrum disorder” diagnosis and summarizes his troubled, obscure final years. Sidebars alongside the main narrative explain the difference between AC and DC, how a dynamo works, and other relevant topics; a timeline includes several incidents and inventions not mentioned in the main narrative. The line-drawn illustrations have an old-time–y look, emphasized by sparing application of color, that’s occasionally jarred by the sudden appearance of a collaged-in photographic element. Though this doesn’t equal the voltage of Elizabeth Rusch’s Electrical Wizard, illustrated by Oliver Dominguez (2013), it generates watts enough to leave readers with a deeper understanding of Tesla’s larger-than-life feats and flaws. Human figures are white throughout, the men sporting picturesque period facial hair.
A well-turned tale with flashes of insight. (glossary, further reading) (Picture book/biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68446-141-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Capstone Editions
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
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