This is not a stellar choice for encouraging children to care for their planet.
Residents from the fictional planet Globux tell of how their planet was ruined—and warn people living on Earth to beware a similar plight.
Short sentences throughout are set in black, seemingly hand-printed capital letters against what look like strips of white paper. Each verso is backgrounded plainly in a solid color, while art on each recto is detailed, colorful, and apparently computer-generated. The quasi-biblical opening accompanies a small, white-marbled ball in a dark sky: “In the beginning, on the planet Globux, there was only a small pile of rocks.” The next two double-page spreads offer more of the Creation story, with the advent of water, plants, animals, and, finally, humans. The small, detailed drawings fill up appropriately. After this, every spread details the many ways that people on the planet used and abused resources, with a recurring concluding litany: “…and a bit of earth disappeared.” Apparently “earth” is used for soil, but readers might find it odd that the word “Globux” was not used instead. Changes in the plethora of animals, plants, and human creations are unbearably subtle in the first few pages, and then there is sudden, dark nothingness, followed by the aforementioned warning to earthlings. As the destruction worsens, the palette darkens and the strips of text both grow smaller and crowd to the bottom of the page. Although the illustrations will entertain children, the text—at first dark and then didactic—is unlikely to appeal. The overall effect is of apocalypse rather than hope.
This is not a stellar choice for encouraging children to care for their planet. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7893-3430-5
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Universe/Rizzoli
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender...
A polar-bear parent speaks poetically of love for a child.
A genderless adult and cub travel through the landscapes of an arctic year. Each of the softly rendered double-page paintings has a very different feel and color palette as the pair go through the seasons, walking through wintry ice and snow and green summer meadows, cavorting in the blue ocean, watching whales, and playing beside musk oxen. The rhymes of the four-line stanzas are not forced, as is the case too often in picture books of this type: “When cold, winter winds / blow the leaves far and wide, / You’ll cross the great icebergs / with me by your side.” On a dark, snowy night, the loving parent says: “But for now, cuddle close / while the stars softly shine. // I’ll always be yours, / and you’ll always be mine.” As the last illustration shows the pair curled up for sleep, young listeners will be lulled to sweet dreams by the calm tenor of the pictures and the words. While far from original, this timeless theme is always in demand, and the combination of delightful illustrations and poetry that scans well make this a good choice for early-childhood classrooms, public libraries, and one-on-one home read-alouds.
Parent-child love and affection, appealingly presented, with the added attraction of the seasonal content and lack of gender restrictions. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68010-070-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tiger Tales
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Like its subject: full of bustling life yet peaceful.
Life buzzes in a community garden.
Surrounded by apartment buildings, this city garden gets plenty of human attention, but the book’s stars are the plants and insects. The opening spread shows a black child in a striped shirt sitting in a top-story window; the nearby trees and garden below reveal the beginnings of greenery that signal springtime. From that high-up view, the garden looks quiet—but it’s not. “Sleepy slugs / and garden snails / leave behind their silver trails. / Frantic teams of busy ants / scramble up the stems of plants”; and “In the earth / a single seed / sits beside a millipede. / Worms and termites / dig and toil / moving through the garden soil.” Sicuro zooms in too, showing a robin taller than a half-page; later, close-ups foreground flowers, leaves, and bugs while people (children and adults, a multiracial group) are crucial but secondary, sometimes visible only as feet. Watercolor illustrations with ink and charcoal highlights create a soft, warm, horticulturally damp environment. Scale and perspective are more stylized than literal. McCanna’s superb scansion never misses, incorporating lists of insects and plants (“Lacewings, gnats, / mosquitos, spiders, / dragonflies, and water striders / live among the cattail reeds, / lily pads, and waterweeds”) with description (“Sunlight warms the morning air. / Dewdrops shimmer / here and there”). Readers see more than gardeners do, such as rabbits stealing carrots and lettuce from garden boxes.
Like its subject: full of bustling life yet peaceful. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-1797-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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