Will provoke “content grunts” in nature lovers.
Readers learn about gorillas in general and also how staff at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo managed two rare coups: getting a mother gorilla to bond with her rejected baby and incorporating baby Yola into the zoo’s existing gorilla family.
The layout, charts, and colorful photographs are enticing. A bright table of contents establishes six chapters, which hint of the story to come, starting at “Firstborn” and ending with “A Family at Last.” Nadiri, the 19-year-old gorilla who gives birth to Yola, was herself raised by humans in a sterile nursery, so it is no surprise to staff when Nadiri gives birth and walks away. Judy, Harmony, and other staff members have come to understand in the interim that “mothering is a learned behavior.” The text gives many examples of the ways that these dedicated people work to teach Nadiri mothering skills, including providing dolls to hug during pregnancy and tempting her with sweet treats to get her closer to her baby. Readers become familiar not only with Yola and Nadiri, but also with family members Akenji—an extroverted female—and Leo, a shy silverback male. Although slim and full of pictures, the book demands fairly able readers. There is a great deal of text—albeit with simple syntax—and many detailed explanations, not only of the changes in Nadiri’s family, but of several related topics.
Will provoke “content grunts” in nature lovers. (endnotes, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5415-4240-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Millbrook/Lerner
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
