As stimulating as a blast of chicory root.
With an assist from author Paxmann and translator Michael, “Hajek has chosen to tell the stories of some of our most amazing plants, using words and illustrations to spark our imaginations.”
That’s what the introduction asserts, and the book delivers. It is perfect for browsing; open at any point, and a double-page spread offers a complete package of informative, often humorous, text on the verso and whimsical, colorful art on the recto. As the endnotes explain, all pages are deliberately treated to appear as if painted on wood. Nevertheless, the print—including colored headings and teaser questions—is easy to read. The text, dexterously translated from German, unabashedly relates the (Eurocentric) histories of Hajek’s chosen flowers. The art follows suit with its highly stylized, folk-art–inspired images of mostly white people garbed in fashions from earlier centuries. The exceptions are a graceful depiction of an Indian woman with ginger—since the root arrived in Europe via India—and tattooed people who might represent South Americans or Pacific Islanders with the pineapple. Each plant’s story is unique, but all give bits of history, folklore, and science. Some fascinating facts relate how modern science has confirmed nearly miraculous botanical properties already known and taught by generations of lay healers and researchers, as in the case of pineapples’ bromelain. There is a rudimentary explanation of phytopharmaceuticals. Other facts are simply fun: Who knew about a salt-shaker patent modeled on the red poppy’s seedcase?
As stimulating as a blast of chicory root. (index) (Informational picture book. 8-12)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-3-7913-7399-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Prestel
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts.
From a Caldecott and Sibert honoree, an invitation to take a mind-expanding journey from the surface of our planet to the furthest reaches of the observable cosmos.
Though Chin’s assumption that we are even capable of understanding the scope of the universe is quixotic at best, he does effectively lead viewers on a journey that captures a sense of its scale. Following the model of Kees Boeke’s classic Cosmic View: The Universe in Forty Jumps (1957), he starts with four 8-year-old sky watchers of average height (and different racial presentations). They peer into a telescope and then are comically startled by the sudden arrival of an ostrich that is twice as tall…and then a giraffe that is over twice as tall as that…and going onward and upward, with ellipses at each page turn connecting the stages, past our atmosphere and solar system to the cosmic web of galactic superclusters. As he goes, precisely drawn earthly figures and features in the expansive illustrations give way to ever smaller celestial bodies and finally to glimmering swirls of distant lights against gulfs of deep black before ultimately returning to his starting place. A closing recap adds smaller images and additional details. Accompanying the spare narrative, valuable side notes supply specific lengths or distances and define their units of measure, accurately explain astronomical phenomena, and close with the provocative observation that “the observable universe is centered on us, but we are not in the center of the entire universe.”
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts. (afterword, websites, further reading) (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4623-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care.
In 1977, the oil carrier Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into a formerly pristine Alaskan ocean inlet, killing millions of birds, animals, and fish. Despite a cleanup, crude oil is still there.
The Winters foretold the destructive powers of the atomic bomb allusively in The Secret Project (2017), leaving the actuality to the backmatter. They make no such accommodations to young audiences in this disturbing book. From the dark front cover, on which oily blobs conceal a seabird, to the rescuer’s sad face on the back, the mother-son team emphasizes the disaster. A relatively easy-to-read and poetically heightened text introduces the situation. Oil is pumped from the Earth “all day long, all night long, / day after day, year after year” in “what had been unspoiled land, home to Native people // and thousands of caribou.” The scale of extraction is huge: There’s “a giant pipeline” leading to “enormous ships.” Then, crash. Rivers of oil gush out over three full-bleed wordless pages. Subsequent scenes show rocks, seabirds, and sea otters covered with oil. Finally, 30 years later, animals have returned to a cheerful scene. “But if you lift a rock… // oil / seeps / up.” For an adult reader, this is heartbreaking. How much more difficult might this be for an animal-loving child?
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 9-12)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3077-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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