Scofield introduces ideas of environmental sustainability to young readers in this accessible debut.
In three short stories, young siblings Chloe and Dean make discoveries about the amount of waste that humans create. The children live in a suburban neighborhood, where their two parents work, and they play in the woods behind their house. In the first story, Chloe, whose nickname is CoCo, shows her love of animals. When a cardinal seems to be following her, she decides that it’s trying to tell her something. She then notices how the bird uses everything it has, and the girl realizes just how much she wastes in her own life. In the next tale, the kids climb a mountain near their grandparents’ house and find out, to their dismay, that it’s an old landfill—an artificial mountain of trash. In the last story, during a family vacation to Hawaii the children are horrified to learn about the great “Plastic Vortex” that causes trash to wash up on the beach in a place they consider paradise. In each instance, the siblings take action, showing ways that even kids can make positive impacts on the environment. The format, which provides questions at the end of each tale, makes the collection well-suited for use in schools teaching environmental topics, Scout troops, or environmental clubs looking for material to inspire members to create projects in their communities. Luo’s images, a combination of photographs and stylized illustrations, are a perfect match for the text and show how humans interact with their environments. While Scofield’s vocabulary may sometimes be a stretch for her intended audience (“Silence befell them as they began their ascent”), her protagonists have an easy, comfortable relationship, and they’re never so perfect that they’re not relatable. A glossary helps explain the book’s environmental terms, including “Ecological Footprint—the impact an individual has on its environment through daily living (eating, going places, making waste).”
A call to action for kids to make positive differences in their neighborhoods.Pub Date: April 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-943258-99-4
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Warren Publishing, Inc.
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
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A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
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