A clear, appealing blend of science and sibling strategizing.
The dream of flight knows no boundary.
When young Curie the squirrel encounters baby robins in faltering flight, she wants to learn to fly herself. For her first, failed, experiment she creates makeshift wings out of found feathers. A good scientist, Curie then observes children from a nearby school playing on a trampoline and decides to take flight by bouncing on a mushroom; she uses sticks to record how high she leaps but concludes that jumping is not flying. She and her big brother, Newton, hypothesize together, realizing that they need lift from air as well as energy. Seeing the kids fly a paper airplane spurs the pair to try further experiments as they—and readers alongside them—learn about air pressure, lift, and airflow. After constructing a glider, they build a gravity-defying catapult to launch it and then a better, slingshotlike, launching catapult. Subsequent experiments allow the scientifically minded squirrels to learn and improve their results. The STEM concepts are effectively elucidated in the narrative and further expanded on in the backmatter. The anthropomorphized squirrels wear clothes and have hands to replace paws but are recognizably rodents. As in their first foray into physics, Newton and Curie (2020), they are slightly softer cousins of the characters in Kirk’s Library Mouse (2007). Science could hardly have cuter advocates. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A clear, appealing blend of science and sibling strategizing. (glossary, websites) (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781419749636
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for...
A gentle voice and familiar pitfalls characterize this tale of a boy navigating the risky road to responsibility.
Gavin is new to his neighborhood and Carver Elementary. He likes his new friend, Richard, and has a typically contentious relationship with his older sister, Danielle. When Gavin’s desire to impress Richard sets off a disastrous chain of events, the boy struggles to evade responsibility for his actions. “After all, it isn’t his fault that Danielle’s snow globe got broken. Sure, he shouldn’t have been in her room—but then, she shouldn’t be keeping candy in her room to tempt him. Anybody would be tempted. Anybody!” opines Gavin once he learns the punishment for his crime. While Gavin has a charming Everyboy quality, and his aversion to Aunt Myrtle’s yapping little dog rings true, little about Gavin distinguishes him from other trouble-prone protagonists. He is, regrettably, forgettable. Coretta Scott King Honor winner English (Francie, 1999) is a teacher whose storytelling usually benefits from her day job. Unfortunately, the pizzazz of classroom chaos is largely absent from this series opener.
This outing lacks the sophistication of such category standards as Clementine; here’s hoping English amps things up for subsequent volumes. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-97044-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book.
Ada Twist’s incessant stream of questions leads to answers that help solve a neighborhood crisis.
Ada conducts experiments at home to answer questions such as, why does Mom’s coffee smell stronger than Dad’s coffee? Each answer leads to another question, another hypothesis, and another experiment, which is how she goes from collecting data on backyard birds for a citizen-science project to helping Rosie Revere figure out how to get her uncle Ned down from the sky, where his helium-filled “perilous pants” are keeping him afloat. The Questioneers—Rosie the engineer, Iggy Peck the architect, and Ada the scientist—work together, asking questions like scientists. Armed with knowledge (of molecules and air pressure, force and temperature) but more importantly, with curiosity, Ada works out a solution. Ada is a recognizable, three-dimensional girl in this delightfully silly chapter book: tirelessly curious and determined yet easily excited and still learning to express herself. If science concepts aren’t completely clear in this romp, relationships and emotions certainly are. In playful full- and half-page illustrations that break up the text, Ada is black with Afro-textured hair; Rosie and Iggy are white. A closing section on citizen science may inspire readers to get involved in science too; on the other hand, the “Ode to a Gas!” may just puzzle them. Other backmatter topics include the importance of bird study and the threat palm-oil use poses to rainforests.
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3422-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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