The premise of this series kickoff is better than the presentation.
A museum educator takes a stab at comparing medieval arms and armor to lobster tails and other animal defenses.
Baill juxtaposes stock animal photos, some in color, some not, with photos of full suits or pieces of armor (ditto) from the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. These accompany either discussion-starting questions like “What do slimy snails and shining armor have in common?” or such audience-friendly observations as “A group of rhinos is called a crash.” Several of the photographed figures are too dark to make out smaller details easily, though, and except for a ladybug on a blade of grass, all are placed without visual context against low-contrast monochrome backgrounds that sometimes darken them further. Claims that rhinos can reach “their top speed in no time” and that armored knights could still run and jump are at best credulity stretching. A comment that every ring in a shirt of chain mail “is stamped with the name of an important person” is, frustratingly, not backed up with a closer look at the shirt. An appendix offers further details about the artifacts but not the animals—which leaves readers to guess, for instance, how that ladybug’s “bright color is a warning to other creatures.” Younger museumgoers might better arm themselves with the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Can You Find It? series.
The premise of this series kickoff is better than the presentation. (author's note) (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-61689-955-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Norma Dixon’s Lowdown on Earthworms (2005) digs deeper into the subject, but this lays fertile groundwork for budding...
Beginning readers who tunnel through this upbeat first introduction will “dig” them too.
After an opening look at several kinds of worm (including the candy sort), McCloskey drills down to the nitty-gritty on earthworms. He describes how they help soil with their digging and “poop” (“EEW!”) and presents full-body inside and outside views with labeled parts. He also answers in the worms’ collective voice such questions as “Why do you come out after the rain?” and “How big is the biggest worm in the world?” that are posed by a multiethnic cast of intent young investigators in the cartoon illustrations. A persistent but frustrated bluebird’s “Yum, yum!!” and rejected invitations to lunch offer indirect references to worms as food sources, and reproductive details are likewise limited to oblique notes that worms have big families “born from cocoons.” Single scenes mingle with short sequences of panels in pictures that are drawn on brown paper bags for an appropriately earthy look.
Norma Dixon’s Lowdown on Earthworms (2005) digs deeper into the subject, but this lays fertile groundwork for budding naturalists. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-935179-80-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: TOON Books & Graphics
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
Another feather in McCloskey’s cap.
Budding naturalists who dug We Dig Worms! (2015) will, well, coo over this similarly enlightening accolade.
A curmudgeonly park visitor’s “They’re RATS with wings!” sparks spirited rejoinders from a racially diverse flock of children wearing full-body bird outfits, who swoop down to deliver a mess of pigeon facts. Along with being related to the dodo, “rock doves” fly faster than a car, mate for life, have been crossbred into all sorts of “fancies,” inspired Pablo Picasso to name his daughter “Paloma” in their honor, can be eaten (“Tastes like chicken”), and, like penguins and flamingos, create “pigeon milk” in their crops for their hatchlings. Painted on light blue art paper—“the kind,” writes McCloskey in his afterword, “used by Picasso”—expertly depicted pigeons of diverse breeds common and fancy strut their stuff, with views of the children and other wild creatures, plus occasional helpful labels, interspersed. In the chastened parkgoer’s eyes, as in those of the newly independent readers to whom this is aimed, the often maligned birds are “wonderful.” Cue a fresh set of costumed children on the final page, gearing up to set him straight on squirrels.
Another feather in McCloskey’s cap. (Graphic informational early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-935179-93-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: TOON Books & Graphics
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
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