Unfocused but nevertheless gifted with bold visuals and a beguiling sense of appreciation for nature’s beauties.
Imported from Germany, an album of mountains, with tributes to those who scale them, portraits of flora and fauna that live on them, and related topics.
As Braun covers his subject in no very systematic way and often wanders some distance off course, it’s his faceted, vividly hued landscapes and figures that will (as in Wild Animals of the North and Wild Animals of the South, 2016 and 2017) be the main draw. In between soaring portraits of 20 tall or otherwise renowned peaks and rocky formations, he intersperses wildlife portraits—the snow leopard being particularly magnificent—along with equipment layouts for climbers and for skiers. He also ventures down into caves and across the Gobi Desert, pausing to admire several scenic wonders from Antarctic icebergs to mountain sculptures including Petra, Mount Rushmore, and the Crazy Horse Memorial. To give a sense of scale he places the Eiffel Tower and Great Pyramid next to Uluru in one scene and, just for fun, in another slips in a pair of hulking yeti. The accompanying notes are likewise scattershot, offering nuggets of information that can feel arbitrary. Aside from stately Maasai and Aboriginal men in ceremonial dress and quick nods to renowned mountaineers Edmund Hilary, Tenzing Norgay, and Reinhold Messner, human figures are too stylized to detect their ethnicities.
Unfocused but nevertheless gifted with bold visuals and a beguiling sense of appreciation for nature’s beauties. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-11)Pub Date: June 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-912497-94-2
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.
This book is buzzing with trivia.
Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A quick flight but a blast from first to last.
A charged-up roundup of astro-facts.
Having previously explored everything awesome about both dinosaurs (2019) and sharks (2020), Lowery now heads out along a well-traveled route, taking readers from the Big Bang through a planet-by-planet tour of the solar system and then through a selection of space-exploration highlights. The survey isn’t unique, but Lowery does pour on the gosh-wow by filling each hand-lettered, poster-style spread with emphatic colors and graphics. He also goes for the awesome in his selection of facts—so that readers get nothing about Newton’s laws of motion, for instance, but will come away knowing that just 65 years separate the Wright brothers’ flight and the first moon landing. They’ll also learn that space is silent but smells like burned steak (according to astronaut Chris Hadfield), that thanks to microgravity no one snores on the International Space Station, and that Buzz Aldrin was the first man on the moon…to use the bathroom. And, along with a set of forgettable space jokes (OK, one: “Why did the carnivore eat the shooting star?” “Because it was meteor”), the backmatter features drawing instructions for budding space artists and a short but choice reading list. Nods to Katherine Johnson and NASA’s other African American “computers” as well as astronomer Vera Rubin give women a solid presence in the otherwise male and largely White cast of humans. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A quick flight but a blast from first to last. (Informational picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-35974-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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