Here’s a Holstein who makes a fetching subject for Lundquist’s camera, though this easy-reading portrait of a dairy farm’s “four-footed factory” leaves the boundary between fact and invention a little vague. Never explaining why Clarabelle has a name when her 1,200 herdmates evidently don’t, the author joins her as she gives birth (offstage), then disappears while her calf—seen in an obviously posed shot—is fed “first milk” from a bottle by two farm lads. Off she trundles to the milking center, and afterward back to the manger, where she stands on bedding made from her own processed dung and feeds on a mix of silage that may be “tossed like a garden salad,” but certainly doesn’t look like one. Along with tallying the many products made from Clarabelle’s milk and manure (methane from the latter even powers an electrical generator) and explaining with tantalizing brevity how a few of them are made, Peterson introduces some members of the farm’s owning family. Younger readers may get a clearer picture of how a dairy farm works from Gail Gibbons’s The Milk Makers (1985) or Aliki’s Milk from Cow to Carton (1992), but this provides a more personal view of the enterprise. (Nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-59078-310-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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It’s not truffles but doubloons that tickle this porcine wayfarer’s fancy.
Funke and Meyer make another foray into chapter-book fare after Emma and the Blue Genie (2014). Here, mariner Stout Sam and deckhand Pip eke out a comfortable existence on Butterfly Island ferrying cargo to and fro. Life is good, but it takes an unexpected turn when a barrel washes ashore containing a pig with a skull-and-crossbones pendant around her neck. It soon becomes clear that this little piggy, dubbed Julie, has the ability to sniff out treasure—lots of it—in the sea. The duo is pleased with her skills, but pride goeth before the hog. Stout Sam hands out some baubles to the local children, and his largess attracts the unwanted attention of Barracuda Bill and his nasty minions. Now they’ve pignapped Julie, and it’s up to the intrepid sailors to save the porker and their own bacon. The succinct word count meets the needs of kids looking for early adventure fare. The tale is slight, bouncy, and amusing, though Julie is never the piratical buccaneer the book’s cover seems to suggest. Meanwhile, Meyer’s cheery watercolors are as comfortable diagramming the different parts of a pirate vessel as they are rendering the dread pirate captain himself.
A nifty high-seas caper for chapter-book readers with a love of adventure and a yearning for treasure. (Adventure. 7-9)Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-37544-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION | CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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Spirited illustrations brighten a large-format introduction to flowers and their pollinators.
Showing a less Eurocentric outlook than in his Big Book of Birds (2019), Zommer employs agile brushwork and a fondness for graceful lines and bright colors to bring to life bustling bouquets from a range of habitats, from rainforest to desert. Often switching from horizontal to vertical orientations, the topical spreads progress from overviews of major floral families and broad looks at plant anatomy and reproduction to close-ups of select flora—roses and tulips to Venus flytraps and stinking flowers. The book then closes with a shoutout to the conservators and other workers at Kew Gardens (this is a British import) and quick suggestions for young balcony or windowsill gardeners. In most of the low-angled scenes, fancifully drawn avian or insect pollinators with human eyes hover around all the large, luscious blooms, as do one- or two-sentence comments that generally add cogent observations or insights: “All parts of the deadly nightshade plant contain poison. It has been used to poison famous emperors, kings and warriors throughout history.” (Confusingly for the audience, the accurate but limited assertion that bees “often visit blue or purple flowers” appears to be contradicted by an adjacent view of several zeroing in on a yellow toadflax.) Human figures, or, in one scene, hands, are depicted in a variety of sizes, shapes, and skin colors.
A floral fantasia for casual browsers as well as budding botanists. (glossary, index) (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-500-65199-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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