An essential purchase for elementary teachers and libraries looking for cross-curricular books.
Rose and Ed learn much more than expected on their butterfly hunt.
Rose sets out with a copy of Butterfly Field Guide for Young Explorers and Ed with just his net. “That first day out, it wasn’t much fun / ‘cause Ed netted ten and I netted none! / How many in all? Let’s add them again! / “Well, 10 + 0 is 10,” Ed said. “10 + 0 is 10!” Each day is seen as a double-page spread of the duo hunting in field and garden. As Rose’s totals grow, Ed’s shrink. The totals in the text are mirrored in a tally of “Butterflies Captured and Released” in the illustrations. Each spread also features a snippet from Rose’s book with a butterfly fact: “Question Marks and Red-spotted Purples are attracted to barnyard smells!” By tale’s end, Rose nets 10 to Ed’s zero, and they discover that over the 11 days they have caught an equal number…except for Rose’s surprise chrysalis (that’s been busily going through metamorphosis through each picture). Educator Mariconda and Rogers (Sort It Out!, 2008, etc.) reteam for an excellent rhyming tale that doubles as math lesson and triples as a butterfly-biology primer. Four pages of realistically illustrated butterfly/math activities for older readers follow the story.
An essential purchase for elementary teachers and libraries looking for cross-curricular books. (Picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-60718-074-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sylvan Dell
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Another winner from Mills, equally well suited to reading aloud and independent reading.
When Franklin School principal Mr. Boone announces a pet-show fundraiser, white third-grader Cody—whose lack of skill and interest in academics is matched by keen enthusiasm for and knowledge of animals—discovers his time to shine.
As with other books in this series, the children and adults are believable and well-rounded. Even the dialogue is natural—no small feat for a text easily accessible to intermediate readers. Character growth occurs, organically and believably. Students occasionally, humorously, show annoyance with teachers: “He made mad squinty eyes at Mrs. Molina, which fortunately she didn’t see.” Readers will be kept entertained by Cody’s various problems and the eventual solutions. His problems include needing to raise $10 to enter one of his nine pets in the show (he really wants to enter all of them), his troublesome dog Angus—“a dog who ate homework—actually, who ate everything and then threw up afterward”—struggles with homework, and grappling with his best friend’s apparently uncaring behavior toward a squirrel. Serious values and issues are explored with a light touch. The cheery pencil illustrations show the school’s racially diverse population as well as the memorable image of Mr. Boone wearing an elephant costume. A minor oddity: why does a child so immersed in animal facts call his male chicken a rooster but his female chickens chickens?
Another winner from Mills, equally well suited to reading aloud and independent reading. (Fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-374-30223-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
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