A concise but thorough environmental primer for young readers enhanced by colorful and attractive illustrations.
A children’s book renders a practical environmentalist message in simple language and pictures.
In this volume, Sper (Follow the Yarn: A Book of Colors, 2016, etc.) guides children through basic and actionable recommendations for reducing carbon footprints and minimizing waste. The picture book’s prescriptions are child-friendly in concept (“Repair toys instead of buying new ones”) and also remind young readers of their ability to influence adult behavior (“Kids are teaching their parents to take shorter showers, travel on public transportation or bike to work, set up a compost bin, and use energy-efficient light bulbs”). A spread on recycling gives readers an idea of what may happen to repurposed glass and plastic bottles, while subsequent pages provide guidance on adapting recycling plants to local waste management processes, using just 26 words to explain the difference between commingled and separated recycling systems. Touches of humor, like the menu for a “Worm Café” that accompanies a spread on composting, add to the kid appeal, as does the recurring image of the front page of Planet Earth News, a paper that celebrates young people’s conservation achievements. Sper’s basic but engaging illustrations should appeal to fans of Dick Bruna and Roger Priddy, with solid colors and silhouette-style shapes that produce simple but elegant high-contrast graphics. Most spreads consist of only a few sentences, but for the book’s final pages, Sper turns to “big words and ideas” to provide more detail on climate change, fossil fuels, and renewable energy. Although the text becomes denser in the last pages of the volume, the language remains easy for young readers to follow: “Most cars and computers run on energy from fossil fuels, but there are other sources of energy.” With its emphasis on shaping both individual and adult behavior, the book is likely to make reminders to separate recycling, carry reusable shopping bags, turn off lights, and avoid wasting water a regular part of children’s conversations with their parents.
A concise but thorough environmental primer for young readers enhanced by colorful and attractive illustrations.Pub Date: July 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9754902-7-3
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Jump Press
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book.
Ada Twist’s incessant stream of questions leads to answers that help solve a neighborhood crisis.
Ada conducts experiments at home to answer questions such as, why does Mom’s coffee smell stronger than Dad’s coffee? Each answer leads to another question, another hypothesis, and another experiment, which is how she goes from collecting data on backyard birds for a citizen-science project to helping Rosie Revere figure out how to get her uncle Ned down from the sky, where his helium-filled “perilous pants” are keeping him afloat. The Questioneers—Rosie the engineer, Iggy Peck the architect, and Ada the scientist—work together, asking questions like scientists. Armed with knowledge (of molecules and air pressure, force and temperature) but more importantly, with curiosity, Ada works out a solution. Ada is a recognizable, three-dimensional girl in this delightfully silly chapter book: tirelessly curious and determined yet easily excited and still learning to express herself. If science concepts aren’t completely clear in this romp, relationships and emotions certainly are. In playful full- and half-page illustrations that break up the text, Ada is black with Afro-textured hair; Rosie and Iggy are white. A closing section on citizen science may inspire readers to get involved in science too; on the other hand, the “Ode to a Gas!” may just puzzle them. Other backmatter topics include the importance of bird study and the threat palm-oil use poses to rainforests.
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3422-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A book about engineering notable mostly for its illustrations of diverse characters. (Board book. 1-3)
Babies and engineers have more in common than you think.
In this book, Alexander highlights the unlikely similarities between babies and engineers. Like engineers, babies ask questions, enjoy building, and learn from their mistakes. Black’s bold, colorful illustrations feature diverse babies and both male- and female-presenting adult characters with a variety of skin tones and hair colors, effectively demonstrating that engineers can be any race or either gender. (Nonbinary models are a little harder to see.) The story ends with a reassurance to the babies in the book that “We believe in you!” presumably implying that any child can be an engineer. The end pages include facts about different kinds of engineers and the basic process used by all engineers in their work. Although the book opens with a rhythmic rhyming couplet, the remaining text lacks the same structure and pattern, making it less entertaining to read. Furthermore, while some of the comparisons between babies and engineers are both clever and apt, others—such as the idea that babies know where to look for answers—are flimsier. The book ends with a text-heavy spread of facts about engineering that, bereft of illustrations, may not hold children’s attention as well as the previous pages. Despite these flaws, on its best pages, the book is visually stimulating, witty, and thoughtful.
A book about engineering notable mostly for its illustrations of diverse characters. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-31223-2
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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