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 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
The story feels a bit contrived, but Ada will be a welcome addition to the small circle of science-loving girls in the...
Using science and technology, third-grader Ada Lace kicks off her new series by solving a mystery even with her leg in a cast.
Temporarily housebound after a badly executed bungee jump, Ada uses binoculars to document the ecosystem of her new neighborhood in San Francisco. She records her observations in a field journal, a project that intrigues new friend Nina, who lives nearby. When they see that Ms. Reed’s dog, Marguerite, is missing, they leap to the conclusion that it has been stolen. Nina does the legwork and Ada provides the technology for their search for the dognapper. Story-crafting takes a back seat to scene-setting in this series kickoff that introduces the major players. As part of the series formula, science topics and gadgetry are integrated into the stories and further explained in a “Behind the Science” afterword. This installment incorporates drones, a wireless camera, gecko gloves, and the Turing test as well as the concept of an ecosystem. There are no ethnic indicators in the text, but the illustrations reveal that Ada, her family, and bratty neighbor Milton are white; Nina appears to be Southeast Asian; and Mr. Peebles, an inventor who lives nearby, is black.
The story feels a bit contrived, but Ada will be a welcome addition to the small circle of science-loving girls in the chapter-book world. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8599-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
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