Great, fascinating, lighthearted fun.
A highly entertaining catalog of presidential pets and other White House animals.
An apocryphal remark by Harry S. Truman observes, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” Why? Because, “As the president you are in charge of the WHOLE of the United States of America,” and “Citizens might not agree with your opinions, ideas, or political party.” While there have been over 100 dogs belonging to presidents and their families, an astonishing variety of other animals have been quartered at the White House. Both Calvin Coolidge’s wife, Grace, and Theodore Roosevelt’s family had quite a few. The names of members of presidential menageries are entertaining, from Boston Beans Coolidge (dog) to Misty Malarky Ying Yang Carter (cat) to Mooly Wooly Taft (cow) to Emily Spinach Roosevelt (snake). Andrew Jackson’s foulmouthed parrot makes an appearance along with the tigers given to Martin Van Buren (they were confiscated and given to a zoo). A gift of elephants to James Buchanan never arrived, but both John Quincy Adams and Herbert Hoover supposedly had alligators. The dozens of expressive, brightly colored, shaggy, scaly, toothy creatures in McGill’s charming cartoon illustrations seem to radiate good humor and cheerfulness. Backmatter names the pets belonging to every president (only James K. Polk and Donald Trump had no animals at all) and offers additional facts. Endpapers feature black-and-white photos of animals belonging to eight former commanders in chief.
Great, fascinating, lighthearted fun. (additional facts, selected sources) (Informational picture book. 3-9)Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-12269-3
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
A solid addition to the climate-change canon for those interested in saving a fragile world.
Dire consequences attend the unchecked melting of Arctic sea ice.
The more the ice melts, the more the Arctic climate changes. The more that air and ground temperatures rise, the more the frozen ecosystem’s inhabitants, including plants and insects, suffer from dwindling habitats; threats to food sources; and imbalances in feeding, breeding, and migration patterns. Solid information is packed into this brief work that lucidly raises the alarm for young readers, with each spread capturing the thrilling, chilling north in rich, dramatic blue swathes of seawater set off by icy glaciers and snowdrifts. Child-friendly, occasionally cluttered paintings, some with labels, highlight polar bears and their Arctic neighbors; a spread of vignettes illustrates how changes to plant life affect wildlife. One labeled spread explains all: As seawater warms, it absorbs sunlight, thus heating more water and melting more ice. One poignant spread depicts a bewildered polar bear mom, eyeing readers and flanked by her twin cubs, drifting on a shrinking ice floe. Two human children, one brown-skinned and one pale, occasionally appear in the illustrations as well. The book ends on a hopeful note, reassuring youngsters that “we still have time to save polar bears and slow the loss of Arctic ice.” A note in the backmatter offers conservation tips.
A solid addition to the climate-change canon for those interested in saving a fragile world. (author’s note, bibliography, additional sources) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-14319-8
Page Count: 42
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lighthearted and informative, though the premise may be a bit stretched.
An amiable introduction to our thrifty, sociable, teeming insect cousins.
Bunting notes that all the ants on Earth weigh roughly the same as all the people and observes that ants (like, supposedly, us) love recycling, helping others, and taking “micronaps.” They, too, live in groups, and their “superpower” is an ability to work together to accomplish amazing things. Bunting goes on to describe different sorts of ants within the colony (“Drone. Male. Does no housework. Takes to the sky. Reproduces. Drops dead”), how they communicate using pheromones, and how they get from egg to adult. He concludes that we could learn a lot from them that would help us leave our planet in better shape than it was when we arrived. If he takes a pass on mentioning a few less positive shared traits (such as our tendency to wage war on one another), still, his comparisons do invite young readers to observe the natural world more closely and to reflect on our connections to it. In the simple illustrations, generic black ants look up at viewers with little googly eyes while scurrying about the pages gathering food, keeping nests clean, and carrying outsized burdens.
Lighthearted and informative, though the premise may be a bit stretched. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780593567784
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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