Fun with bugs.
Oversized illustrations of various insects “slither, creep, crawl, scamper, swim, climb…or fly” across colorful pages that also sport the “Extraordinary Facts” announced on the cover.
The initial double-page spread is a bright, grassy green. A large black headline announces “The bug club.” Directly beneath it, in smaller black lettering: “Step into the exciting world of mini-beasts! Don’t be afraid!” Large, colorful, semicomical renditions of several insects—and a lizard whose tongue is trying to catch a fly—are scattered across the pages, accompanied by blocks of text that give a few facts about cicadas, rhinoceros beetles, peacock butterflies, tiger beetles, and ants. More text is included in two opaque circles of contrasting colors, each with the headline, “Wow!” Each succeeding double-page spread uses a similar layout, producing in readers the opposite effect of a bedtime story. The categories include legs, homes, camouflage, unusual survival skills, and more. On several occasions, the text cleverly adds buglike meanings to well-known sayings. Although the colorful busy-ness and overabundance of exclamation marks would suggest a preschool audience, an abundance of text and compound sentences makes it more appropriate for older readers who don’t mind hype. Their reward: plenty of cool and/or gross facts with which to impress others. Hopefully, young readers will read all the way to the ending’s reminder of the importance of bugs to our planet. Companion title Wow! Look What’s in the Oceans publishes simultaneously and with similar effect.
Fun with bugs. (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7534-7517-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kingfisher
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More thoughtful, sometimes exhilarating encounters with nature.
In a new entry in the Over and Under series, a paddleboarder glimpses humpback whales leaping, floats over a populous kelp forest, and explores life on a beach and in a tide pool.
In this tale inspired by Messner’s experiences in Monterey Bay in California, a young tan-skinned narrator, along with their light-skinned mom and tan-skinned dad, observes in quiet, lyrical language sights and sounds above and below the sea’s serene surface. Switching perspectives and angles of view and often leaving the family’s red paddleboards just tiny dots bobbing on distant swells, Neal’s broad seascapes depict in precise detail bat stars and anchovies, kelp bass, and sea otters going about their business amid rocky formations and the swaying fronds of kelp…and, further out, graceful moon jellies and—thrillingly—massive whales in open waters beneath gliding pelicans and other shorebirds. After returning to the beach at day’s end to search for shells and to spot anemones and decorator crabs, the child ends with nighttime dreams of stars in the sky meeting stars in the sea. Appended nature notes on kelp and 21 other types of sealife fill in details about patterns and relationships in this rich ecosystem. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
More thoughtful, sometimes exhilarating encounters with nature. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-79720-347-8
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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