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
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books.
Curious about the Big Wide World outside his Sasquatch community, Hugo makes a friend who is of it.
Sasquatch Hugo’s bedroom is inside a cave and possesses the charming feature of a small stream running through it that he can sail his little toy boat on. It’s cool, but he yearns to see the Big Wide World. When he asks his smart friend Gigi if a Sasquatch might become a sailor, she says it’s possible but would be difficult—the primary rule of their people is to not be seen by Humans. Then, in everyone’s favorite Hide and Go Sneak class, which is held outside, a Human appears; Hugo laughs at the sight, drawing Human attention in a taboo-breaking mistake. Shortly after, Hugo’s toy boat floats into the cave with a Human toy—soon, it’s facilitating a pen-pal–type relationship that’s derailed when Hugo confesses to being a Sasquatch and Human Boone, a budding cryptozoologist, doesn’t believe him. How Hugo and Boone resolve this misapprehension and become friends in a joint search for the Ogopogo concludes this series opener. Potter keeps the third-person narrative tightly focused on Hugo’s perspective, and the details she uses to flesh out the Sasquatch world are delightfully playful. Sala’s drawings depict a homey Sasquatch cavern community, Boone as a freckled, white boy, and Hugo as a hairily benevolent behemoth.
A charming friendship story and great setup for future books. (final art unseen) (Fantasy. 5-9)Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2859-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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