Simple words and soft illustrations enhance a fact-based story of squirrels and oak trees.
This rhyming picture book tells the story of a squirrel’s activities and how they relate to the creation of oak trees.
A female squirrel gathers acorns in the fall, burying them beneath the ground in caches. When winter arrives, she holes up in her nest in a tree, but since squirrels do not hibernate—as author Ferry informs readers in her easy style—the squirrel emerges regularly to dig up cached acorns. In spring, baby squirrels are born into the nest, and a new generation takes over. Meanwhile, the acorns the squirrel has not dug up have the chance to germinate (the book’s backmatter, “Nutty Facts,” relates, among other tidbits, that 74 percent of cached acorns aren’t retrieved) and grow into oak trees, thereby continuing the cycle. In this way, using a single squirrel as a focus for readers, the story delivers a larger theme of the role squirrels play in creating oak trees. Illustrator Kang’s broad, soft illustrations, presented in creative perspectives, add to the story’s overall feel of elapsed time—squirrel generations, seasons, and the growth of oak trees are subtly presented. This is especially emphasized by the beginning and concluding double-page spreads; the beginning shows a young white boy with a dog, the ending shows the same landscape but with an elderly white man, a different dog, and more and larger oak trees.
Simple words and soft illustrations enhance a fact-based story of squirrels and oak trees. (Informational picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-18736-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another feather in McCloskey’s cap.
Budding naturalists who dug We Dig Worms! (2015) will, well, coo over this similarly enlightening accolade.
A curmudgeonly park visitor’s “They’re RATS with wings!” sparks spirited rejoinders from a racially diverse flock of children wearing full-body bird outfits, who swoop down to deliver a mess of pigeon facts. Along with being related to the dodo, “rock doves” fly faster than a car, mate for life, have been crossbred into all sorts of “fancies,” inspired Pablo Picasso to name his daughter “Paloma” in their honor, can be eaten (“Tastes like chicken”), and, like penguins and flamingos, create “pigeon milk” in their crops for their hatchlings. Painted on light blue art paper—“the kind,” writes McCloskey in his afterword, “used by Picasso”—expertly depicted pigeons of diverse breeds common and fancy strut their stuff, with views of the children and other wild creatures, plus occasional helpful labels, interspersed. In the chastened parkgoer’s eyes, as in those of the newly independent readers to whom this is aimed, the often maligned birds are “wonderful.” Cue a fresh set of costumed children on the final page, gearing up to set him straight on squirrels.
Another feather in McCloskey’s cap. (Graphic informational early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-935179-93-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: TOON Books & Graphics
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
Simultaneously simple and sophisticated—but not for the baby and toddler board-book crowd; older preschoolers learning to...
An anthology of Picasso’s animal sketches from various collections including birds, insects, and various mammals.
With pencil and ink reproduced on backgrounds that look like aging white paper (just like the originals), these drawings display a childlike spontaneity. With very few marks, Picasso reduced the animals down to their most basic forms; many look as though they were drawn with one stroke of a pen. An ostrich consists of one leg, a long neck and beak, and a circular scribble at the rear for a tail, and a horse consists of three downward strokes for legs, a boot-shaped head, and two circles at the top of the legs for shoulder and haunch. While his technique is impressive by any standard, the primary audience for board books, babies and toddlers, are still learning to identify each animals’ basic qualities, and these sketches may not serve that goal. Each image is paired with a phrase or sentence at the bottom of the page, often sharing facts both obvious and surprising. (The text is uncredited.) The backmatter includes a short biography of Picasso and much-too-small-to-be-useful facsimiles of the original drawings the sketches were pulled from.
Simultaneously simple and sophisticated—but not for the baby and toddler board-book crowd; older preschoolers learning to make their own representational drawings will be inspired. (Board book. 3-5)Pub Date: April 24, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7148-7418-0
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Phaidon
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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