A blast from the past, sure to transport fans of all things big and loud.
In a properly lap- and eye-filling format (it has a 2-foot wingspan), a soaring tribute to the “Queen of the Skies.”
Following Go for the Moon (2019), Gall pays homage to another outsize triumph of engineering wizardry and industrial might. A mammoth machine two and a half times larger than any other jet liner of its time, Boeing’s 747 is so big, he claims, that the Wright brothers could have made their entire first flight in its fuselage without leaving the coach section. It debuted in 1968 and, though now retired from domestic use, is still the fastest commercial passenger plane in the world. Drawn with Gall’s customary clean precision, a mix of dramatically angled full-body portraits, glimpses of workers in a gigantic assembly plant, cutaway views of cockpit and spacious seating areas, detailed sectional diagrams of wings and engines, and flocks of smaller aircraft from a paper plane to a suddenly dinky-seeming 737 combine to underscore the scope of the technological achievement as well as both the sheer scale of the jet and of the effort that went into building it. There is also a dream-come-true element, as a red-haired, pale-skinned child frequenting the pictures through each stage of the leviathan’s design and assembly makes a final appearance in the pilot’s seat and turns out to be Lynn Rippelmeyer, the first woman to captain a 747. Clad in late-20th-century attire, the small human figures clustering throughout add a sense of period but are nearly all White.
A blast from the past, sure to transport fans of all things big and loud. (glossary, source list, “fun facts,” afterword) (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-15580-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
“Humans are lucky to have rodents,” Munro argues…and makes her case with equal warmth to hearts and minds.
Twenty-one representatives of the largest mammalian order pose in this fetching portrait gallery.
Each one depicted, all or in part, at actual size, the rodentine array begins with a pocket-watch–size African pygmy jerboa and concludes with the largest member of the clan, the “sweet-looking capybara.” In between, specimens climb the scale past chipmunks and northern flying squirrels to a Norway rat, porcupine, and groundhog. Despite a few outliers such as the naked mole rat and a rather aggressive-looking beaver, Munro’s animals—particularly her impossibly cute guinea pig—strongly exude shaggy, button-eyed appeal. Her subjects may come across as eye candy, but they are drawn with naturalistic exactitude, and in her accompanying descriptive comments, she often relates certain visible features to distinctive habitats and behaviors. She also has a terrific feel for the memorable fact: naked mole rats run as quickly backward in their tunnels as forward; African giant pouched rats have been trained to sniff out mines; the house mouse “is a romantic. A male mouse will sing squeaky love songs to his girlfriend” (that are, fortunately or otherwise, too high for humans to hear). Closing summaries will serve budding naturalists in need of further specifics about sizes, diets, geographical ranges, and the like.
“Humans are lucky to have rodents,” Munro argues…and makes her case with equal warmth to hearts and minds. (websites, index) (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3860-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
Considering the flotilla of more watertight treatments available, a washout.
A dip into the diverse bodies of water on our planet and some of the ways we interact with them.
Like water itself, this survey doesn’t take any particular shape. Illustrated with large photos in which the author digitally inserts small cartoon animals and items, single-topic spreads are arranged in seemingly arbitrary order. They offer brief overviews of the water cycle; fresh, salt, and brackish waters and their natural residents; oceans; select seas, lakes, canals, and waterfalls; rivers both major (the Amazon, the Nile) and not so much (the Brooks River in Alaska); “Famous Places” such as Venice and Yellowstone National Park; the “floating market” of Bangkok; and other subjects before suddenly running aground on the southern coast of Australia. Each topic concludes with a cartoon and a question (“Which dam is a little too low?” “Which rabbit is surprised by the geyser?”) that playfully test comprehension, but the one activity, a perfunctory suggestion to fill a bucket with seawater then wait for the water to evaporate, is no more feasible than the ensuing claim that the residue will be “the same salt that you have in the kitchen cupboard!” is accurate.
Considering the flotilla of more watertight treatments available, a washout. (Nonfiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-60537-354-6
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Clavis
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
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