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EARTHQUAKES

EARTH’S MIGHTIEST MOMENTS

What is an earthquake? What causes it? The author and illustrator of Caves: Mysteries Beneath Our Feet (2001) tackle this difficult topic for beginning readers with only partial success. It’s hard to picture an earthquake, and harder still to imagine “a rock up to sixty miles thick . . . bigger than the United States . . . floating on an ocean of rock 1,800 miles deep.” The author describes how tectonic plates rub together and split apart, shaking, breaking, and releasing gasses from inside the earth. He describes how scientists measure the strength of earthquakes with the Richter Scale. Brightly colored illustrations are decorative but not especially helpful. For example, the illustration of one plate slipping below another shows wide bands of magenta, red, orange, a black line, blue, and brown bands, with yellow arrows pointing in opposite directions. Hard to tell what’s happening. This entry in the Earthworks series will be tough going for its intended young audience. (Nonfiction. 7-9)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004

ISBN: 1-59078-243-7

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Boyds Mills

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2004

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THE PUMPKIN BOOK

The Pumpkin Book (32 pp.; $16.95; Sept. 15; 0-8234-1465-5): From seed to vine and blossom to table, Gibbons traces the growth cycle of everyone’s favorite autumn symbol—the pumpkin. Meticulous drawings detail the transformation of tiny seeds to the colorful gourds that appear at roadside stands and stores in the fall. Directions for planting a pumpkin patch, carving a jack-o’-lantern, and drying the seeds give young gardeners the instructions they need to grow and enjoy their own golden globes. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1999

ISBN: 0-8234-1465-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Holiday House

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999

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DORY STORY

Who is next in the ocean food chain? Pallotta has a surprising answer in this picture book glimpse of one curious boy. Danny, fascinated by plankton, takes his dory and rows out into the ocean, where he sees shrimp eating those plankton, fish sand eels eating shrimp, mackerel eating fish sand eels, bluefish chasing mackerel, tuna after bluefish, and killer whales after tuna. When an enormous humpbacked whale arrives on the scene, Danny’s dory tips over and he has to swim for a large rock or become—he worries’someone’s lunch. Surreal acrylic illustrations in vivid blues and red extend the story of a small boy, a small boat, and a vast ocean, in which the laws of the food chain are paramount. That the boy has been bathtub-bound during this entire imaginative foray doesn’t diminish the suspense, and the facts Pallotta presents are solidly researched. A charming fish tale about the one—the boy—that got away. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000

ISBN: 0-88106-075-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000

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