Amazing art makes this a browser’s delight, but they should go elsewhere for solid information
An oversized album of 80 common and lesser-known wild animals from three northern-hemisphere continents, identified by common and Latin names.
The draw here is the imagery: gorgeous, geometrically stylized silkscreenlike digital portraits, most filling at least a page. Some pictures stretch across a double-page spread; other animals get two, one frontal close-up and another, more distant image. Often there's a suggestion of appropriate habitat. The American lobster is shown both in its living blue-green and cooked red states. Half the images are accompanied by short paragraphs offering a variety of interesting facts. Calleja’s translation of the German text of this British import is sometimes awkward and in one case mistaken: the “King Duck” is properly a king eider. English spelling (“tonnes”) and metric measurements are used throughout. And, as can happen when an illustrator writes his natural-history text, there are occasional errors. The Kodiak bear was not the inspiration for teddy bears; that was the smaller Louisiana bear. The text repeats the unfortunate and no-longer-used name “oldsquaw” for the long-tailed duck and attributes the raccoon’s name generally to “Native Americans” though it comes from a specific Algonquian word. This title covers North America, Europe and Asia; a companion, not yet available in English, covers South America, Africa, and Australia. Thumbnails serve as an index.
Amazing art makes this a browser’s delight, but they should go elsewhere for solid information . (Picture book. 5-12)Pub Date: June 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-909263-96-3
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with...
Reynolds and Brown have crafted a Halloween tale that balances a really spooky premise with the hilarity that accompanies any mention of underwear.
Jasper Rabbit needs new underwear. Plain White satisfies him until he spies them: “Creepy underwear! So creepy! So comfy! They were glorious.” The underwear of his dreams is a pair of radioactive-green briefs with a Frankenstein face on the front, the green color standing out all the more due to Brown’s choice to do the entire book in grayscale save for the underwear’s glowing green…and glow they do, as Jasper soon discovers. Despite his “I’m a big rabbit” assertion, that glow creeps him out, so he stuffs them in the hamper and dons Plain White. In the morning, though, he’s wearing green! He goes to increasing lengths to get rid of the glowing menace, but they don’t stay gone. It’s only when Jasper finally admits to himself that maybe he’s not such a big rabbit after all that he thinks of a clever solution to his fear of the dark. Brown’s illustrations keep the backgrounds and details simple so readers focus on Jasper’s every emotion, writ large on his expressive face. And careful observers will note that the underwear’s expression also changes, adding a bit more creep to the tale.
Perfect for those looking for a scary Halloween tale that won’t leave them with more fears than they started with. Pair with Dr. Seuss’ tale of animate, empty pants. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0298-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
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