A migrating monarch lights on a tortoise’s back for a brief conversation, resumes her long journey to Mexico, returns to the tortoise’s garden the next Spring, and continues on to a final rest as the eggs she leaves behind hatch and grow to maturity before the tortoise’s eyes. With So’s delicately brushed illustrations capturing both the lacy energy of the butterflies and the ironically named tortoise’s slow, wrinkled dignity, this brief set of encounters will leave readers contemplating the contrast between the long seasonal rhythms of the tortoise’s world and the much quicker—also more eventful—life a monarch knows. Pair it with Sam Swopes’s equally captivating Gotta Go! Gotta Go! (2000) for a thought-provoking alternative to the fluttering hordes of conventional nonfiction on monarchs. (afterword) (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: June 14, 2005
ISBN: 0-375-83003-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2005
A quick but adventuresome paddle into a mysterious realm.
The ocean’s depths offer extra wonders to a child who is briefly left behind on a class trip.
In the wake of their Field Trip to the Moon (2019), a racially diverse group of students boards a submarine (yellow, but not thatone) for a wordless journey to the ocean’s bottom. Donning pressure suits, the children follow their teacher past a swarm of bioluminescent squid, cluster around a black smoker, and pause at an old shipwreck before plodding back. One student, though, is too absorbed in taking pictures to catch the signal to depart and is soon alone amid ancient ruins—where a big, striped, friendly, finny creature who is more than willing to exchange selfies joins the child, but it hides away when the sub-bus swoops back into sight to pick up its stray. Though The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor (1994) carries a considerably richer informational load, in his easy-to-follow sequential panels Hare does accurately depict a spare assortment of benthic life and features, and he caps the outing with a labeled gallery of the errant student’s photos (including “Atlantis?” and “Pliosaur?”). The child is revealed at the end to be Black. Hare also adds cutaway views at the end of a diving suit and the sub. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-19-inch double-page spreads viewed at 40% of actual size.)
A quick but adventuresome paddle into a mysterious realm. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4630-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
Gibbons’s 100th book is devoted to presenting swine in a positive light; she quickly demystifies the stereotypes that cast pigs as smelly, dirty, greedy, and dull. Descended and domesticated from the wild boar, pigs come in hundreds of varieties, colors, shapes, and sizes; in simple language, the book outlines their characteristics, breeds, intelligence, communication, habits, and uses. The author distinguishes the various terms—hog, swine, gilt, sow, boar—while also explaining the act of wallowing in mud. The bulk of the text is characteristically factual, but Gibbons allows herself an opinion or two: “They are cute and lovable with their curly tails, their flat pink snouts and their noisy squeals and grunts.” Pen-and-watercolor drawings show sprightly pigs and a plethora of pink-cheeked children in tranquil farm scenes. (Picture book/nonfiction. 4-8)
Pub Date: March 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-8234-1441-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
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