A very good idea, not quite simple enough in development. Pages of the book are folded over so that the answer to the question posed by each picture, is found when the flap of the picture is opened out. Various ways of travel and transportation, including such remote methods as camels and elephants and submarines, and omitting (here is the weakness of the book) automobiles, trains, subways, bicycles. The Rey pictures are gay and amusing, with lots of detail that children enjoy examining.
Pub Date: June 15, 1941
ISBN: 0395906946
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1941
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This will pique readers’ curiosity (and hopefully their gratitude at their privilege) but does not answer all the questions...
U.S. readers who jump on a bus or walk a few blocks will marvel at what kids around the world will do to get an education.
In Canada, the child narrator helps his sisters onto the toboggan and then climbs on the snowmobile behind Grandpa. The four cross the frozen lake to the closest school, in Minnesota. In Bolivia, a teleférico connects two of the highest cities in the world, and it’s used daily by over 3,000 students. Other methods include a rickshaw (depicted here as a vehicle that looks like a cross between a jeep and an SUV) in Pakistan, a Japanese bullet train, and a motorbike (one adult and four children onboard!) in Cameroon. The Ethiopian and Ukrainian children face political and social dangers on their walks, and the rural Kenyan students must avoid Africa’s Big Five. Each journey’s description is allotted a double-page spread with a large illustration and the country’s flag. The sidebars at the edges, though, are often a jumble of unrelated facts that, though positive and possibly surprising to U.S. readers, add little. Many of the tales beg for more detail, and readers will feel the lack of a map and glossary. Backmatter includes a select bibliography of 49 resources and an update of some dangerous journeys previously broadcast on the internet. An authors’ note explains that the stories are composites and that they do not represent an entire country or even one specific season.
This will pique readers’ curiosity (and hopefully their gratitude at their privilege) but does not answer all the questions they will surely have. (Informational picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0665-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Like the Vasa, this feels not quite seaworthy.
Who’s to blame when everything goes wrong?
In the early 1600s, King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden ordered the construction of a mighty warship to be the flagship of his navy. After two years’ construction, the mighty Vasa was ready to sail on the afternoon of Aug. 10, 1628. Less than a mile into its maiden voyage, the Vasa, along with her crew and their families, sank into Stockholm’s harbor. After the calamity, Sweden began an investigation into why the ship so easily capsized. The results were inconclusive, although Freedman implies that the king’s desire for a superfluity of cannons may have been the cause. Centuries later, in the mid-1950s, the Vasa was raised and restored. Now housed in the Stockholm Museum, the Vasa is a popular tourist attraction. Freedman provides a lot of information to his readers, but with its compression into the picture-book format, the pacing is rushed. The ending—relating a reclaimed cannon to Sweden’s history of peace—feels tangential at best. Hopefully, curious readers will seek out the additional information about the Vasa, shipwrecks, and restoration provided in the bibliography. Low’s digital illustrations are sumptuous and stunning, and they could pass for traditional paintings. It’s unfortunate that the text does not live up to the artwork.
Like the Vasa, this feels not quite seaworthy. (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62779-866-2
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Godwin Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
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