by Cris Peterson ; photographed by David R. Lundquist ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 16, 2019
Solid information and much food for thought.
The subtitle says it all.
Americans eat 4.5 billion gallons of popcorn each year, or 18 times the volume of the Empire State Building. Every year, they eat 200 million boxes of Cracker Jack, that combination of popcorn, peanut, and molasses so many Americans grew up with. Ubiquitous as it is, however, the youngest readers may not realize that popcorn is actually a plant from “the land of wind turbines and flat-as-a-pancake prairie” known as the Corn Belt. Big, bright color photographs nicely complement the informative text, which details where popcorn is grown, how it is one of four types of corn grown on 90 million acres of land, and that popcorn is not simply picked, shucked, and shelled; the kernels must be processed and dried so they have just the right amount of moisture for popping. A particularly clear explanation of the physics of popcorn is a highlight. The photographs, laid out in a pleasantly varied design, present a diverse cast of smiling children enjoying popcorn. The penultimate spread presents a photograph of a huge ship loaded with containers of popcorn bound for countries all over the world, demonstrating just what big business popcorn is. Additional information is contained in the backmatter, and sources include books for children who might want to read further.
Solid information and much food for thought. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-62979-892-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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by Cris Peterson & photographed by David R. Lundquist
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by Shelley Rotner ; photographed by Shelley Rotner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 5, 2017
Bruce Goldstone’s Awesome Autumn (2012) is still the gold standard.
Rotner follows Hello Spring (2017) with this salute to the fall season.
Name a change seen in northern climes in fall, and Rotner likely covers it here, from plants, trees, and animals to the food we harvest: seeds are spread, the days grow shorter and cooler, the leaves change and fall (and are raked up and jumped in), some animals migrate, and many families celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving. As in the previous book, the photographs (presented in a variety of sizes and layouts, all clean) are the stars here, displaying both the myriad changes of the season and a multicultural array of children enjoying the outdoors in fall. These are set against white backgrounds that make the reddish-orange print pop. The text itself uses short sentences and some solid vocabulary (though “deep sleep” is used instead of “hibernate”) to teach readers the markers of autumn, though in the quest for simplicity, Rotner sacrifices some truth. In several cases, the addition of just a few words would have made the following oversimplified statements reflect reality: “Birds grow more feathers”; “Cranberries float and turn red.” Also, Rotner includes the statement “Bees store extra honey in their hives” on a page about animals going into deep sleep, implying that honeybees hibernate, which is false.
Bruce Goldstone’s Awesome Autumn (2012) is still the gold standard. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3869-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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by Gwen Agna & Shelley Rotner ; photographed by Shelley Rotner
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by Shelley Rotner ; illustrated by Shelley Rotner
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by Gwen Agna & Shelley Rotner ; photographed by Shelley Rotner
by Kari Lavelle ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2023
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
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by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Nabi H. Ali
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