With its dazzling colors and big, simple, paper collage forms, this may draw fans of Byron Barton’s Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs (1989) and Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones (1990), but it’s strictly an also-ran. Between a lame, large-type rhyme at the top and several lines of commentary in smaller type below each scene, Barner (Fish Wish, 2000, etc.) alternates skeletal and fleshed-out portraits of five popular dinosaurs. Problem is that the skeleton paired with Spinosaurus belongs to some other (unspecified) creature, and—even novice dino fans will puzzle over this one—all of the T. Rexes have flat, plant-eater teeth. Also, Barner will leave most readers none the wiser by rightly noting that some dinosaurs had hips like birds, and some like lizards, but neither showing nor explaining the difference. The design wins no points either; background colors are so saturated that some blocks of text are indistinct, and the “Dino-meter” at the end is not a measurement chart (that appears on the previous spread), but a table of general facts. Give this one a miss. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-7)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8118-3158-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2001
``Water is dew. Water is ice and snow.'' No matter what form it takes, seldom has plain old water appeared so colorful as in this rainbow-hued look at rain, dew, snowflakes, clouds, rivers, floods, and seas. Asch celebrates water's many forms with a succinct text and lush paintings done in mostly in softly muted watercolors of aqua, green, rose, blue, and yellow. They look as if they were created with a wet-on-wet technique that makes every hue lightly bleed into its neighbor. Water appears as ribbons of color, one sliding into the other, while objects that are not (in readers' minds) specifically water-like—trees, rocks, roots—are similarly colored. Perhaps the author intends to show water is everything and everything is water, but the concept is not fully realized for this age group. The whole is charming, but more successful as art than science. Though catalogued as nonfiction, this title will be better off in the picture book section. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-15-200189-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1995
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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