by Brenda Z. Guiberson ; illustrated by William Low ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2016
Fine viewing, but more of an art exhibit than a systematic family history.
Recently discovered hints that most dinosaurs may have been feathered cap a gallery of prehistoric predecessors to today’s birds.
The presentation has more of a cobbled-together feel than Guiberson’s previous look at the deep past, The Greatest Dinosaur Ever (illustrated by Gennady Spirin, 2013). Despite the title, the book goes beyond feathers. Guiberson discusses how the colors of fossilized feathers can be deduced from the shapes of their microscopic melanosomes, but she also describes early appearances of other avian features such as wishbones and a two-legged stance. But that anatomical focus doesn’t extend to the illustrations, as in the dimly lit paintings, dinosaurs loom indistinctly, their colors muted and limbs tightly folded or otherwise angled so that structural details are hard to make out. Eoalulavis appears only as a few tiny figures winging past a pair of immense sauropods, and the towering ornithischian confronting a modern ostrich on the final spread isn’t identified at all. The portraits are arranged in rough chronological order, but there are no clues in text or pictures to the dinosaurs’ specific eras. Despite a reference to the “teeny wings” of Hesperornis and a few other breaks in tone, the author’s commentary is otherwise solid…until its grand but insupportable closing claim that birds now inhabit “every environment on Earth.”
Fine viewing, but more of an art exhibit than a systematic family history. (bibliography) (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9828-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
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by Jennifer Roy ; illustrated by Meg Owenson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2015
A sensitive, discussable access point for children learning about Holocaust history.
The brave work of Irena Sendler, one of the righteous gentiles of World War II, is succinctly depicted in this new picture book.
“There are two kinds of people in this world, good and bad.” As a child, wise words from her father gave Irena a guiding principle to live by and prompted the adult Sendler to find ways to save 2,500 innocent Jewish children and babies from the horror of their Holocaust fate. She worked with a network of smugglers and shelters to hide them in carpentry boxes, vegetable sacks, and laundry piles, transporting them to orphanages and the homes of willing Christian foster families, recording the children’s names so they could be found later and burying her lists in the titular jars. And when she herself was imprisoned by the Nazis, Zegota, the Polish resistance group, bribed guards to free her so she could continue her important work. Digital and traditional art in opaque dark browns and grays illustrates the sinister period and shadowy existence of these saved children. Roy’s chronological narrative concentrates on the period from 1940 to 1944 and stresses Sendler’s heroism; it also includes invented scenes and dialogue, marking it as fiction.
A sensitive, discussable access point for children learning about Holocaust history. (afterword, author’s note, glossary, index, source notes) (Picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62370-425-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
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by Shelley Gill ; illustrated by Marc Scheff ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 19, 2016
The story’s focus on Gabe, as cranky and independent as his human, makes for a surprisingly accessible introduction to the...
Just as Steinbeck took Charley on his travels, teenage Gill went with Gabe: “Home was where your friends were, so Gabe and I became each other’s home.”
More in search of a satisfactory place to settle down than some nebulous America, Gill recalls leaving home at 17 and meeting the blue merle husky mix that became her canine companion in a first aid tent at a 1972 Rainbow Tribe festival in Colorado. From there, the two hitchhiked to New Orleans, then onward across the country before fetching up, ultimately, in Alaska. As a late, glancing reference to marriage and divorce indicates, Gill leaves a lot out, but what she includes strings both simple adventures and emotionally complex moments one after another into an episodic but loving tribute. She describes living in the French Quarter, where “overdoses and pistol-whippings by the police were common,” losing her beloved dog and then being joyfully reunited, raising a litter of husky pups abandoned by their mother, and, in later years, running an Iditarod and finally holding Gabe in her arms as old age takes him. The tale is printed on full-bleed color paintings that add considerably to their vividness by centering on the author’s independent, confident-looking figure and on a dog that, as often as not, is posed with teeth bared in a feral snarl.
The story’s focus on Gabe, as cranky and independent as his human, makes for a surprisingly accessible introduction to the 1970s for middle graders. (afterword) (Graphic memoir. 8-10)Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-57091-354-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
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