A nature-centered collection that promotes intergenerational community but may reach a narrower audience than intended.
The Vilhauers, a mother-and-son team, present sensory poems to encourage children and adults to connect with nature.
In 15 simple poems, 9-year-old Clay Vilhauer and his mother, Amber Vilhauer, have co-authored their second book after The Long Forest Trail (2023) to offer spare visual and metaphysical descriptions and gentle reflections (“leaves light behind that outlives it, / giving long after it is gone”) on the sun, the moon, the stars, the wind, the rain, and rainbows, among other topics. Each poem takes up less than a full page, with some only five lines long, and can be digested in minutes. Doran provides sleek linework illustrations, enriching each entry’s thin-lined doodle with a loose wash of watercolor that intentionally goes beyond the lines and invites children to emulate. Though the poems are accessible to elementary-age readers, the diction sometimes feels slightly older, with concepts including galaxies, momentum, and impact mentioned. Certain lines ring truer than others. In “the moon,” for example, the last two lines, “moves the entire ocean without making a sound / all of life looks up to it, connecting us since the beginning,” feel much more grounded than the first two, “changes in phase yet moves through space whole, generous, and constant / does not judge or fear the dark, only lights it up,” which imbue the moon with a little too much human agency. The co-authors thoughtfully explore the overall theme of slowing down, recognizing one’s inner light, and connecting with loved ones—especially children—through contemplating nature. The final entry, titled “your turn,” encourages readers to find something in nature, consider what they can learn from it, and then share those lessons with others, perhaps on the book’s blank pages meant for that purpose.
A nature-centered collection that promotes intergenerational community but may reach a narrower audience than intended.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781633311619
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Disruption Books
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.
A principled athlete strives for social justice.
Kaepernick forthrightly details the activism that earned him global renown but cost him his NFL career. In 2016, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback “was filled with disgust” after police shootings of fellow Black men in several American cities. Before a preseason game, he made a spontaneous decision: “It hit me in that moment that I should find a seat” during the national anthem. He did the same at two more games before reporters noticed. Kaepernick will forever be associated with “taking a knee” during the anthem, but he credits Eric Reid—a teammate who agreed with Kaepernick’s message—for suggesting that they kneel together during subsequent anthems. The protest changed everything for Kaepernick. President Trump vilified him. Kaepernick and his wife received death threats. And though he’d taken the 49ers to a Super Bowl, no teams would sign him. He will likely make news for his take on Jay-Z, whose lucrative partnership with the NFL was criticized as an attempt to launder the league’s reputation. Visiting Africa, where Kaepernick learns about “African leaders who willingly sold their own people to the enslavers,” he “couldn’t help but to think about Jay-Z and the NFL.” In opening chapters, Kaepernick recalls suffering traumatic racial abuse as a child. Being in “white spaces”—he was adopted by white parents—placed him “under a microscope every minute of every day.” He isn’t always nuanced, depicting some people he disagrees with as cartoonishly clueless. But his writing about how college and pro teams “lied” to him about injuries underlines his “feeling of being a disposable commodity.” A decade has passed since Kaepernick played in the NFL, but he stays fit in case “a team needing a QB” calls.
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781538777879
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hachette
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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PERSPECTIVES
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