Browsers and budding neurologists alike will be dazzled, dizzied, and delighted.
A substantial gallery of optical puzzlers and deceivers, with notes on their creators and discoverers.
From the publisher of Al Seckel’s Great Book of Optical Illusions (2001), this worthy successor gathers over 150 photos, shapes, graphic patterns, and artistic effects—with plenty of overlap, particularly in types of effect, but scads of fresh examples. A standard but comprehensive array of color and line juxtapositions, apparent spirals, endless staircases, trick photos, and geometric patterns to which the eye (brain) adds ghostly effects is grouped into 33 types. It’s expanded with entries ranging from 3-D mosaics found in ancient Roman villas to trompe l’oeil paintings and sidewalk chalk drawings, anamorphic images, animal camouflage, face painting, and numerous demonstrations of pattern recognition. These last include illusory “faces” in buildings or natural objects and a block of text that is surprisingly readable even though all the letters except each word’s first and last ones are jumbled. Rüschemeyer’s accompanying notes are scanty and unsystematic, but he usually describes each effect, delves into its neurological cause (where understood), and recounts its sometimes-serendipitous discovery.
Browsers and budding neurologists alike will be dazzled, dizzied, and delighted. (Nonfiction. 8 & up)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-77085-592-2
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
Though usually cast as the trickster, Coyote is more victim than victimizer, making this a nice complement to other Coyote...
Two republished tales by a Greco-Cherokee author feature both folkloric and modern elements as well as new illustrations.
One of the two has never been offered south of the (Canadian) border. In “Coyote Sings to the Moon,” the doo-wop hymn sung nightly by Old Woman and all the animals except tone-deaf Coyote isn’t enough to keep Moon from hiding out at the bottom of the lake—until she is finally driven forth by Coyote’s awful wailing. She has been trying to return to the lake ever since, but that piercing howl keeps her in the sky. In “Coyote’s New Suit” he is schooled in trickery by Raven, who convinces him to steal the pelts of all the other animals while they’re bathing, sends the bare animals to take clothes from the humans’ clothesline, and then sets the stage for a ruckus by suggesting that Coyote could make space in his overcrowded closet by having a yard sale. No violence ensues, but from then to now humans and animals have not spoken to one another. In Eggenschwiler’s monochrome scenes Coyote and the rest stand on hind legs and (when stripped bare) sport human limbs. Old Woman might be Native American; the only other completely human figure is a pale-skinned girl.
Though usually cast as the trickster, Coyote is more victim than victimizer, making this a nice complement to other Coyote tales. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-55498-833-4
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A breathtaking picture-book account of a climb to the top of Mount Everest. Jenkins (Hottest, Coldest, Highest, Deepest, 1998, etc.) documents each step of the way with vivid crushed-paper and cut-paper collages that will rivet viewers. He begins with a world map that shows the Himalayas, recounts efforts to measure the peaks, describes early expeditions, and includes the successful climbs of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953, and Rheinhold Messner in 1980. Next, Jenkins illustrates the necessary gear for modern mountain-climbing, and describes the journey itself, beginning in Kathmandu, Nepal, the 100-mile trek to the base of Mount Everest, then step-by-step, up the mountain to the summit. At each step, the striking collages extend the information of the text and capture the majesty of the mountain. Visually arresting and inspiring. (Picture book. 8-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-94218-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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