by Carl Safina ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 21, 2020
A fascinating and foreboding call to action.
Following on the heels of Beyond Words: What Elephants and Whales Think and Feel (2019), this second adaptation of Safina’s adult bestseller Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel (2015) provides strong evidence for the author’s assertion that “A wolf is not an ‘it.’ A wolf is a ‘who.’ ”
The conversational text begins with a short prologue about the author’s decision to research wolves in the wild to better understand his own dogs, Jude and Chula. Off he goes to the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone National Park, where scientists have been collaring and tracking wolves since their reintroduction in 1995. The last of the indigenous wolves had been killed by a dutiful park ranger in 1926—before most people understood that without wolves, that particular ecosystem was doomed. Indeed, only a few years after reintroduction, the system had rebalanced. In 2012, gray wolves were removed from the federal endangered species list, and Wyoming ended its moratorium on wolf-killing. Used to moving beyond the confines of the national park during winter, wolves who had never feared humans were easy prey for hunters. Safina makes it heartbreakingly clear that each dead wolf represents a huge disturbance to each discrete wolf pack. Readers learn the personal histories, behaviors, and personalities of several specific wolves. There is some humor to soften the overall alarming wake-up call, and vivid descriptions allow readers to join treks across wintry landscapes. Later in the book, attention turns to the author’s dogs, domestication, and even theory of mind, all conveyed clearly and succinctly.
A fascinating and foreboding call to action. (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-14465-2
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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by Carl Safina
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by Carl Safina ; illustrated by Carl Safina
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PERSPECTIVES
by Kathleen Krull & illustrated by Boris Kulikov ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2006
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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by Kathleen Krull & illustrated by Boris Kulikov
by Kathleen Krull & illustrated by Boris Kulikov
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by Kathleen Krull & Virginia Loh-Hagan ; illustrated by Aura Lewis
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by Kathleen Krull ; illustrated by Annie Bowler
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by Kathleen Krull & Paul Brewer ; illustrated by Boris Kulikov
by Amy Stewart ; illustrated by Briony Morrow-Cribbs ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 8, 2017
Entomophobes will find all of this horrifyingly informative.
This junior edition of Stewart’s lurid 2011 portrait gallery of the same name (though much less gleeful subtitle) loses none of its capacity for leaving readers squicked-out.
The author drops a few entries, notably the one on insect sexual practices, and rearranges toned-down versions of the rest into roughly topical sections. Beginning with the same cogent observation—“We are seriously outnumbered”—she follows general practice in thrillers of this ilk by defining “bug” broadly enough to include all-too-detailed descriptions of the life cycles and revolting or deadly effects of scorpions and spiders, ticks, lice, and, in a chapter evocatively titled “The Enemy Within,” such internal guests as guinea worms and tapeworms. Mosquitoes, bedbugs, the ubiquitous “Filth Fly,” and like usual suspects mingle with more-exotic threats, from the tongue-eating louse and a “yak-killer hornet” (just imagine) to the aggressive screw-worm fly that, in one cited case, flew up a man’s nose and laid hundreds of eggs…that…hatched. Morrow-Cribbs’ close-up full-color drawings don’t offer the visceral thrills of the photos in, for instance, Rebecca L. Johnson’s Zombie Makers (2012) but are accurate and finely detailed enough to please even the fussiest young entomologists.
Entomophobes will find all of this horrifyingly informative. (index, glossary, resource lists) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61620-755-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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