The large format and attractive, cartoonlike illustrations provide an inviting look at a country not often included in many...
Three cousins representing the diverse cultural groups who inhabit the Philippines take readers on a tour of the many islands that make up the archipelago.
Mary, Jaime, and Ari are the offspring of three sisters from the Ifugao people of Luzon, but their fathers are of Chinese, Spanish, and Muslim Arab descent. This device lends an artificial, idealized spin to the diversity question, but it gets the job done. No mention is made of the contemporary rise of Muslim separatists, although the section on history notes that the Americans “impos[ed] their style of democratic authority.” The emphasis is on cultural activities, including religious holidays, and favorite foods (with recipes for pancit, a noodle dish; polveron, a candy made from powdered milk; and halo-halo, a combination of fruits and beans with ice, sugar, and milk). There are descriptions of games including sipa, which is similar to hacky sack, with directions for making your own sipa, and sungka, also known as mancala in Africa and the Middle East. Unfortunately, instructions are not clear enough to really play. The only craft is a modified parol, a Christmas decoration. A creation myth and one song are included, but the book’s real strength is the description of activities and life in different parts of the country.
The large format and attractive, cartoonlike illustrations provide an inviting look at a country not often included in many other resources for children. (websites, index ) (Nonfiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8048-4072-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Tuttle
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
Salutary reading for armchair berserkers and shield maidens.
A handy guide for young readers thinking that life on a longship in pursuit of plunder might be for them.
Prospective Vikings will want to know something of the history and rewards of their calling, and so in this much simplified and newly illustrated version of John Haywood’s Viking, a 2011 title in the Unofficial Manual series, Amson-Bradshaw offers useful features aplenty. These range from thumbnail portraits of Olaf Tryggvason and other renowned Viking leaders to travel articles such as “5 Epic Places To Plunder Before You Die (Violently).” Along the way she also deals out short but rousing disquisitions on battle tactics and berserkers, weapons and gear, seagoing navigation, Viking “healthcare,” and other relevant topics. Akiyama illustrates it all in occasionally gory cartoon drawings with green and gray highlights featuring three modern children—timorous Angus, bloodthirsty Kate (both white), and Eddie, dark skinned and gung-ho—who travel back in time and are squired about by mighty warrior Bjorn and scowling shield maiden Hervor. The same modern trio tries out the life of legionaries in So You Want To Be a Roman Soldier? (2019), which is also recast for younger audiences from an earlier, longer work (Legionary, by Philip Matyszak, 2009) and likewise well stocked with historical people (only slightly more diverse than in …Viking), places, and facts. Both make a career in, say, librarianship, look far more enticing.
Salutary reading for armchair berserkers and shield maidens. (map, index, glossary) (Nonfiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-500-65184-1
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Playful measures and matches, whether measured in inches or dinosaurs.
Answers for anyone who has ever wondered whether a horse is faster than a hare or what the weight of a blue whale is—in tyrannosaurs.
In a mix of infographics and captions, both of which incorporate units of measure conventional and otherwise, each spread brings together assorted animals, weather phenomena, record setters, very big machines, or other thematically linked images or items as invitations to make comparisons. Along with being drawn reasonably close to scale, the figures are positioned to make those comparisons easy. They also often incorporate visual expressions of certain measures so that viewers can instantly contrast, for instance, the heights of the Empire State Building and the Burj Khalifa or the amount of water in a typical cat, dog, human (both baby and grown-up), cactus, and wedge of cheddar. Where humans are involved, as in lineups showing stages of development from newborn on or the seven children (one in a wheelchair) that measure up to one triceratops, Seixas consciously mixes gender presentations, races, and ages. Much of the information in the art and in Gifford’s quick comments looks to be averages or estimates—and is hard to check since sources go unmentioned. Still, this considerably streamlined spinoff of his The Book of Comparisons, illustrated by Paul Boston (2018), will clue younger audiences in to diverse ways of sizing up the world around them.
Playful measures and matches, whether measured in inches or dinosaurs. (Informational picture book. 7-9.)Pub Date: June 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68464-086-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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