Children will get more from their explorations with these guides along.
Following two titles focusing on birds and rocks and minerals (both 2016, not reviewed), the Ultimate Explorer field-guide series continues to expand.
With its compact trim, strong visuals, and easy-to-use table of contents, glossary, and index, this guide is meant to accompany kids on their adventures. Color-coded circles that divide the groups into crocodilians, turtles, lizards, snakes, salamanders, and frogs and toads surround each animal’s photo. Making identification even easier, there’s a “Quick ID Guide” in the back that provides thumbnail pictures and page numbers. For each entry, readers will learn both common and Latin names, habitat, size, range, food, and some interesting facts. Labeled drawings also point out identifying features. Various double-page spreads break up the guidebook and focus on general facts, such as how snakes move, for example, and frog metamorphosis. Publishing simultaneously, Night Sky highlights the sky above us, the solar system, our galaxy, the seasonal sky, the zodiac, and 41 constellations, each of which is represented by both a star chart (labeled with named stars and each one’s brightness) and a drawing with the outline of the shape. Younger readers may not be able to take in all the information presented, but the charts are easy to read, and the history and tales presented are interesting. As with any NatGeo title, the photos are top-notch, though some of them are quite small.
Children will get more from their explorations with these guides along. (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4263-2544-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: National Geographic Kids
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
Here is an adventure in a unique setting. The lively text and lovely watercolors document three and a half months of a summer the artist and author spent at the South Pole, as part of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists & Writers Program. Hooper describes everyday life aboard the research ship Laurence M. Gould, a sturdy orange icebreaker that scientists use to travel between the islands to study the wide variety of animals who come each year to breed and raise their young. An assortment of penguins, elephant seals, giant petrels, huge skuas, and leopard seals hold center stage. Scientists are less important than the serious business of successfully raising young in the short summer season. The author captures the drama of the ice-cold ocean, alive with life: “Swarms of barrel-shaped blue-tinged salps, stuck together in floating chains. Minute creatures with red eyes. Sliding through the water in a curving path like a ribbon.” The artist provides striking paintings of the landscape and the animals in soft washy colors, and quick pencil sketches. The ice is lemon gold with mauve shadows, and the sea a silver gray in the 24-hour day. Animals are expressive and individual. The krill, the tiny shrimp-like creatures that form the backbone of the ocean food chain, appear in luminous glory. The author concludes with a page on global warming, a map of the islands visited, and an index. From cover to cover a personal and informative journey. (Nonfiction. 7-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7922-7188-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
The author of When Bugs Were Big, Plants Were Strange, and Tetrapods Stalked the Earth (2003) continues her droll but dependable tour of deep prehistory, focusing here on the flora, fauna and fungi of the Silurian and Devonian Periods, approximately 360 to 44 million years ago. This was the time when larger forms of life began to emerge on land, while, among the far richer variety of marine animals, fish wriggled to the top, thanks to newly developed jaws which allowed them “to say good-bye to a monotonous diet of teensy stuff. Now fish could grab, slice and dice to their heart’s content.” By the end, soil, forests and, of course, feet had also appeared. Fearlessly folding in tongue-challenging names and mixing simply drawn reconstructions and maps with goofy flights of fancy—on the first spread Robin Mite and Friar Millipede are caught on a stroll through Sherwood Moss Patch, and on the last, genial nautiloid Amphicyrtoceras plugs the previous volume—Bonner serves up a second heaping course of science that will both stick to the ribs and tickle them. (index, resource lists, time line) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4263-0078-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
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