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LEARNING TO BE WILD

Name: LEARNING TO BE WILD
Author: Carl Safina
ISBN: 9781250838254

HOW ANIMALS ACHIEVE PEACE, CREATE BEAUTY, AND RAISE FAMILIES

by Carl Safina ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 22, 2023

A well-crafted adaptation offering an extraordinary look at animal worlds.

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Chimpanzees, scarlet macaws, and sperm whales all have cultures worthy of respect.

Science writer Safina investigates social learning to prove that animals, like humans, have cultures—they learn how to be who they are. Learned cultures provide skills, identity, a sense of belonging, and traditions. He describes chimps learning ways to survive and make peace within their communities, macaws learning where and how to forage, and sperm whales growing up and thriving in family groups. In Uganda, the Peruvian Amazon, and Dominica, the author joins scientists studying each of these species. His observations are fascinating, full of vignettes about individual animals and information about their behaviors. This is a genuine revision for younger readers of his adult title Becoming Wild (2020), a reframing that is less political and philosophical and more focused on the animals and their intriguing behaviors than on the many, many threats they face. The immediacy and detail of these observations bring readers right into the experience of field science. Most thought-provoking, perhaps, are Safina’s explanation of culture and his observation that, “without some original innovator...there is no knowledge, skill or tradition that could get shared; no culture to copy and conform to.” Black-and-white photographs of the scientists and their subjects are interspersed throughout the text.

A well-crafted adaptation offering an extraordinary look at animal worlds. (bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-16)

Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2023

ISBN: 9781250838254

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ANIMALS | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
BEYOND WORDS
by Carl Safina

- BOOK REVIEW
BEYOND WORDS
by Carl Safina ; illustrated by Carl Safina

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BILL NYE'S GREAT BIG WORLD OF SCIENCE

by Bill Nye & Gregory Mone ; illustrated by Matteo Farinella & Amelia Fenne & Bill Nye ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 27, 2020

Wordplay and wry wit put extra fun into a trove of fundamental knowledge.

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With an amped-up sense of wonder, the Science Guy surveys the natural universe.

Starting from first principles like the scientific method, Nye and his co-author marvel at the “Amazing Machine” that is the human body then go on to talk up animals, plants, evolution, physics and chemistry, the quantum realm, geophysics, and climate change. They next venture out into the solar system and beyond. Along with tallying select aspects and discoveries in each chapter, the authors gather up “Massively Important” central concepts, send shoutouts to underrecognized women scientists like oceanographer Marie Tharp, and slip in directions for homespun experiments and demonstrations. They also challenge readers to ponder still-unsolved scientific posers and intersperse rousing quotes from working scientists about how exciting and wide open their respective fields are. If a few of those fields, like the fungal kingdom, get short shrift (one spare paragraph notwithstanding), readers are urged often enough to go look things up for themselves to kindle a compensatory habit. Aside from posed photos of Nye and a few more of children (mostly presenting as White) doing science-y things, the full-color graphic and photographic images not only reflect the overall “get this!” tone but consistently enrich the flow of facts and reflections. “Our universe is a strange and surprising place,” Nye writes. “Stay curious.” Words to live by.

Wordplay and wry wit put extra fun into a trove of fundamental knowledge. (contributors, art credits, selected bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 11-15)

Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-4197-4676-5

Page Count: 264

Publisher: Abrams

Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD
by Bill Nye & Gregory Mone illustrated by Nick Iluzada

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ISAAC NEWTON

From the Giants of Science series

by Kathleen Krull & illustrated by Boris Kulikov ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2006

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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)