Engaging content and format, despite a few rough edges.
Split-page illustrations offer views of flora and fauna in six habitats worldwide.
Taking the same layered approach as Pang’s Seasons (2021), illustrated by Clover Robin, this outing transports young wildlife lovers from the Namib Desert to deep waters off the Australian coast and points between. The journey begins in the Borneo rain forest with quick descriptive lines and spot images of four or five animals and plants that reside at each level from canopy to ground, opposite four successively wider outdoor settings in which the animals pose. A look at the ocean takes readers from the area just above the water to the sunlit zone to the twilight zone and, finally, to the deep sea. The author neglects to identify many of the animals on display in the art as she goes, and her claim that a slipper flower native to the Andes was “discovered” by Charles Darwin could have been better phrased. Still, if some of Lundie’s flora and fauna seem to float over the backgrounds, everything is easily recognizable, and if her visual transitions between the layered partial pages aren’t consistently smooth, at least she tries to keep the format from being just a perfunctory gimmick. Armchair travelers will enjoy each luxuriantly detailed stop and will agree with the author that they all “connect together into one amazing home.”
Engaging content and format, despite a few rough edges. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781944530419
Page Count: 40
Publisher: 360 Degrees
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another playful imagination-stretcher.
Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.
As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.
Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781339049052
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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
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