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A KIDS BOOK ABOUT GENDER

Name: A KIDS BOOK ABOUT GENDER
Author: Dale Mueller
ISBN: 978-1-951253-67-7

by Dale Mueller & illustrated by Duke Stebbins ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 17, 2021

Readers might finish this book more confused than when they began.

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This short educational book is an introduction to gender for elementary-age kids.

On minimalist white pages with cheerful blocks of color that often turn out to be difficult-to-read words, the author invites readers to ponder the meaning of gender. The author shares their identity as a nonbinary trans person but does not pressure readers to identify their own. As part of a larger study of gender, this book would be a useful conversation starter, but it is neither specific nor clear enough to be an introductory text. Much of the vocabulary introduced is likely unfamiliar, and concepts are presented so broadly as to become meaningless, which raises the question of whether the book is really about gender. Certainly oversimplification does a disservice to children, but the author seems to be unable to produce definitions that support their points. For example, they imply that nothing is just for boys or girls, then go on to explain their nonbinary identity in terms of their gendered interests. The building blocks of a helpful text are here, but they are precariously stacked. The most valuable parts of the book are the advice allowing children space to be unsure about gender and to experiment as well as the acknowledgement that not everyone may understand your gender but that being yourself is worth it.

Readers might finish this book more confused than when they began. (additional resources) (Nonfiction. 5-8)

Pub Date: May 17, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-951253-67-7

Page Count: 64

Publisher: A Kids Book About

Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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BUTT OR FACE?

by Kari Lavelle ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2023

A gleeful game for budding naturalists.

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
WE MOVE THE WORLD
by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Nabi H. Ali

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ANIMAL ARCHITECTS

From the Amazing Animals series

by Amy Cherrix ; illustrated by Chris Sasaki ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 2021

An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort.

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A look at the unique ways that 11 globe-spanning animal species construct their homes.

Each creature garners two double-page spreads, which Cherrix enlivens with compelling and at-times jaw-dropping facts. The trapdoor spider constructs a hidden burrow door from spider silk. Sticky threads, fanning from the entrance, vibrate “like a silent doorbell” when walked upon by unwitting insect prey. Prairie dogs expertly dig communal burrows with designated chambers for “sleeping, eating, and pooping.” The largest recorded “town” occupied “25,000 miles and housed as many as 400 million prairie dogs!” Female ants are “industrious insects” who can remove more than a ton of dirt from their colony in a year. Cathedral termites use dirt and saliva to construct solar-cooled towers 30 feet high. Sasaki’s lively pictures borrow stylistically from the animal compendiums of mid-20th-century children’s lit; endpapers and display type elegantly suggest the blues of cyanotypes and architectural blueprints. Jarringly, the lead spread cheerfully extols the prowess of the corals of the Great Barrier Reef, “the world’s largest living structure,” while ignoring its accelerating, human-abetted destruction. Calamitously, the honeybee hive is incorrectly depicted as a paper-wasps’ nest, and the text falsely states that chewed beeswax “hardens into glue to shape the hive.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)

An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort. (selected sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)