Handsome illustrations and a colorful cover are not enough to make this title in the Young Discoveries Library a useful purchase. Odd—and not-so-odd—creatures are presented in spreads with large full-color glossy drawings, with one main paragraph each and several descriptive captions. The text is banal and adds little to understanding: ``Black rhinos puff like steam engines when they charge at their enemies,'' and ``Pacific hagfish can tie themselves into knots to wriggle out of an enemy's grasp.'' Unrelated animals are grouped together under headings such as ``Armed for Life'' (armadillos and turtles) and ``In the Air'' (the focus is on bats, but a squirrel glider is pictured because it ``does not have wings like a bat''). A howler monkey is paired with a troop of ring-tailed lemurs. The text for ``Tusks and Horns'' indicates that a rhinoceros has a horn made of keratin (which will grow back if cut off), a walrus has unusual teeth called tusks, two male narwhals may cross their tusks like swords, and a unicorn is an imaginary horse with a horn on its head. Intended for young children, this collection is more confusing than enlightening. (Nonfiction. 5-7)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-7835-4840-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1996
Dedicated “to children everywhere sitting in cardboard boxes,” this elemental debut depicts a bunny with big, looping ears demonstrating to a rather thick, unseen questioner (“Are you still standing around in that box?”) that what might look like an ordinary carton is actually a race car, a mountain, a burning building, a spaceship or anything else the imagination might dream up. Portis pairs each question and increasingly emphatic response with a playscape of Crockett Johnson–style simplicity, digitally drawn with single red and black lines against generally pale color fields. Appropriately bound in brown paper, this makes its profound point more directly than such like-themed tales as Marisabina Russo’s Big Brown Box (2000) or Dana Kessimakis Smith’s Brave Spaceboy (2005). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112322-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work.
A young spinach hater becomes a spinach lover after she has to grow her own in a class garden.
Unable to trade away the seed packet she gets from her teacher for tomatoes, cukes or anything else more palatable, Sylvia reluctantly plants and nurtures a pot of the despised veggie then transplants it outside in early spring. By the end of school, only the plot’s lettuce, radishes and spinach are actually ready to eat (talk about a badly designed class project!)—and Sylvia, once she nerves herself to take a nibble, discovers that the stuff is “not bad.” She brings home an armful and enjoys it from then on in every dish: “And that was the summer Sylvia Spivens said yes to spinach.” Raff uses unlined brushwork to give her simple cartoon illustrations a pleasantly freehand, airy look, and though Pryor skips over the (literally, for spinach) gritty details in both the story and an afterword, she does cover gardening basics in a simple and encouraging way.
Very young gardeners will need more information, but for certain picky eaters, the suggested strategy just might work. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9836615-1-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Readers to Eaters
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
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