Biome rudiments with more style than substance.
Earth’s five main biomes—aquatic, forest, grassland, desert, and tundra—are further broken down into subgroups, each with collages depicting that group and some of its animals.
This is a fitting companion piece to Allen-Fletcher’s Animal Antipodes (2018), but, unlike its sibling, it works better as a primary-grade reference book than a one-time read. Each double-page spread has a short paragraph that offers a few facts, such as, “Deciduous forests are found in cooler, rainy areas.” The remainder of each page consists of one-sentence descriptions under all-caps labels near each of the stylized creatures traversing the habitat. Readers will enjoy additions to familiar names—Shiho’s sea horses, curled octopuses—and less-common names, such as wobbegongs and axolotls. There is also pleasant variety in the one-apiece verb for each animal: “Musk oxen graze”; “Adelie penguins huddle.” The layout and the vibrant artwork do not disappoint, and care was taken to include varied countries and continents. The plains biome, for example, includes animals from grasslands in China, Russia, Africa, New Zealand, and North and South America. However, each double-page spread is essentially a beautifully illustrated list of animals in a scantily explained habitat. Children who love animals and love learning new names of animals will enjoy perusing the pages, but anyone craving depth will want to extend their exploration to other, meatier resources.
Biome rudiments with more style than substance. (Informational picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-939547-54-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Creston
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet and endearing feathered migration.
A relationship between a Latina grandmother and her mixed-race granddaughter serves as the frame to depict the ruby-throated hummingbird migration pattern.
In Granny’s lap, a girl is encouraged to “keep still” as the intergenerational pair awaits the ruby-throated hummingbirds with bowls of water in their hands. But like the granddaughter, the tz’unun—“the word for hummingbird in several [Latin American] languages”—must soon fly north. Over the next several double-page spreads, readers follow the ruby-throated hummingbird’s migration pattern from Central America and Mexico through the United States all the way to Canada. Davies metaphorically reunites the granddaughter and grandmother when “a visitor from Granny’s garden” crosses paths with the girl in New York City. Ray provides delicately hashed lines in the illustrations that bring the hummingbirds’ erratic flight pattern to life as they travel north. The watercolor palette is injected with vibrancy by the addition of gold ink, mirroring the hummingbirds’ flashing feathers in the slants of light. The story is supplemented by notes on different pages with facts about the birds such as their nest size, diet, and flight schedule. In addition, a note about ruby-throated hummingbirds supplies readers with detailed information on how ornithologists study and keep track of these birds.
A sweet and endearing feathered migration. (bibliography, index) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0538-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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
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