The relationship between butterflies and the gardens that provide their food and habitat is the focus for this informative work by Lerner (On the Wing: American Birds in Migration, 2001, etc.). She introduces common families of butterflies, showing examples in flight against brightly colored flowers, vegetables, and even weeds that attract butterflies (or caterpillars). An author’s note identifies the specific kinds of butterflies illustrated throughout the text, and attractive endpapers identify many more additional varieties. Her carefully researched paintings show all the tiny patterns of the butterfly wings in exquisite detail, and her flowers are beautifully portrayed against pale blue backgrounds with the flowers labeled unobtrusively, providing information without destroying the artistic integrity of the illustrations. Diagrams are integrated into the illustrations to show the inside of flowers, butterfly anatomy, and the life cycle of the butterfly. Ways to attract the lovely creatures to the garden are also included, with suggested plants and projects. The discussion of the butterfly life cycle falls rather awkwardly at the end of the work (after eggs and caterpillars have already been mentioned in other contexts), which could be confusing to children not already familiar with the correct progression of life stages. However, this work will find a ready audience for science lessons and school reports; recommended for the science shelves of larger school and public libraries as well as home libraries. (Nonfiction. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-688-17478-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
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