A handsome, well-researched tribute to forest ecology and the brave people who help protect it.
Presenting panoramas of a lightning-sparked wildfire, Wolff honors a forest ecosystem and the workers who monitor, manage, and fight forest fires.
Cinematic scenes toggle between animals—sensing danger, seeking shelter for themselves and their young—and humans, who are spotting, communicating, and fighting the wildfire, from the air and on the ground. Various birds—jay, raven, and more—sound the alarm, echoing Wolff’s refrain: “FireFireFire in the forest!” Double-page spreads feature dramatic perspectives and a palette of cool blue-greens and browns, and fiery red, yellow, and purple. Wolff portrays the humans involved in this crucial, often dangerous work as a committed group of racially and gender-diverse workers: Maria staffs a fire lookout; Mia’s a pilot ferrying smokejumpers. Dedicating the project to her son Brennan, a Pacific Northwest hotshot for three seasons, Wolff depicts him by name as a crew member. A bulldozer’s wide swath of “scraped earth finally halts the fire’s march.” A welcome storm helps douse flames as tired crews return to base and pilots fly smokejumpers to new wildfires. Final spreads convey a charred forest that nonetheless highlights some of fire’s natural, regenerative properties: burst pine cones with nuts for squirrels; temporary meadows for deer; tree snags for foraging woodpeckers. An author’s note details shifts in federal response to wildfires and the increasing impacts of climate change and human activity.(This book was reviewed digitally.)
A handsome, well-researched tribute to forest ecology and the brave people who help protect it. (glossary, firefighting tools, sources) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-8773-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
A fair choice, but it may need some support to really blast off.
This rocket hopes to take its readers on a birthday blast—but there may or may not be enough fuel.
Once a year, a one-seat rocket shoots out from Earth. Why? To reveal a special congratulatory banner for a once-a-year event. The second-person narration puts readers in the pilot’s seat and, through a (mostly) ballad-stanza rhyme scheme (abcb), sends them on a journey toward the sun, past meteors, and into the Kuiper belt. The final pages include additional information on how birthdays are measured against the Earth’s rotations around the sun. Collingridge aims for the stars with this title, and he mostly succeeds. The rhyme scheme flows smoothly, which will make listeners happy, but the illustrations (possibly a combination of paint with digital enhancements) may leave the viewers feeling a little cold. The pilot is seen only with a 1960s-style fishbowl helmet that completely obscures the face, gender, and race by reflecting the interior of the rocket ship. This may allow readers/listeners to picture themselves in the role, but it also may divest them of any emotional connection to the story. The last pages—the backside of a triple-gatefold spread—label the planets and include Pluto. While Pluto is correctly labeled as a dwarf planet, it’s an unusual choice to include it but not the other dwarfs: Ceres, Eris, etc. The illustration also neglects to include the asteroid belt or any of the solar system’s moons.
A fair choice, but it may need some support to really blast off. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-18949-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: David Fickling/Phoenix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
An unusual offering for the young geology nerd.
This British import is an imaginatively constructed sequence of images that show a white boy examining a city pavement, clearly in London, and the sights he would see if he were able to travel down to the Earth’s core and then back again to the surface.
The geologic layers are depicted in 10 vertical spreads that require a 90-degree turn to be read and include endpapers, which open out, concertina fashion, to show the interior of the Earth to its core. Beneath the urban setting are drains, pipes, and artifacts of urban infrastructure. Below that, archaeological relics are revealed. An Underground train speeds by, and below it, a stalactite-encrusted cave yawns. Deep below the Earth’s crust, magma, the Earth’s mantle, and the inner core are shown. Turn the page to start going up again, back through the mantle to the crust, where precious minerals are revealed, then fossils, tree roots, and animal burrows, ending with the same boy in the English countryside. The painted, stenciled, and collaged illustrations are full-bleed, and the tones graduate pleasantly from light colors at the surface of the Earth to rich pinks, yellows, and oranges as readers near the Earth’s core. The text is informative, if lacking in poetry, including such nuggets as “earthworms are expert recyclers, eating dead plants in the soil.”
An unusual offering for the young geology nerd. (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68297-136-9
Page Count: 20
Publisher: Words & Pictures
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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