This colorful, easy-reading introduction to our planet’s greatest resource makes a splash.
For habitat, cleanliness, weather, recreation, health, nutrition, and life itself, we are indebted to water.
Each of the functions above is the focus of a different section in this very attractive ode to the uses of H2O. Each part begins with a similar rhetorical question about a waterless world: “Could we keep clean without water?” “Would life be fun without water?” “Would our bodies stay healthy without water?” “Would the earth have seasons without water?” Followed by the emphatic answers: “We could not!” “It would not!” “They would not!” “It would not!” At one point the book conflates weather and seasons, and a few verses don’t quite flow, but for the most part, this is an utterly praise-worthy celebration of water. Near the end, a couple of pages suggest watery problems—“man-made debris,” “factory black sludge,” and “old plastic galore”—but we’re soon back to the positive. A final double-page spread features abstract human figures holding signs labeled “Climate Change,” “Water Is a Human Right,” and “There Is No Planet B.” The illustrations are a perfect fit: Bright, clear, without hard lines or shadows, they depict lots of active animals and lively, racially diverse kids, including several who use wheelchairs. This book will work both for lap and group reading.
This colorful, easy-reading introduction to our planet’s greatest resource makes a splash. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781636550749
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Red Comet Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
A lyrical and educational look at the water cycle.
Through many types of weather and the different seasons, water tells readers about its many forms.
“Sometimes I’m the rain cloud / and sometimes I’m the rain.” Water can make rainbows and can appear to be different colors. Water is a waterfall, a wave, an ocean swell, a frozen pond, the snow on your nose, a cloud, frost, a comet, a part of you. Throughout, Paterson’s rhyming verses evoke images of their own: “Soon the summer sun is back / and warms me with its rays. / I rise in rumbling thunderheads / like castles in the haze,” though at times word order seems to have been chosen for rhyme rather than meaning (“In fall I sink into a fog / and blanket chilly fields, / with pumpkins touched by morning frost / the harvest season yields”). Backmatter includes a diagram of the water cycle that introduces and describes each step with solid vocabulary, including “Collection” as a step in the process; “The Science Behind the Poetry,” which unpacks some of the poetic language and phrases; some water activities and explorations; conservation tips; and a list of other books from the publisher about water. Paterson’s full- and double-page–spread illustrations are just as magical as his verse, showing water in its many forms from afar and close up. Few people appear on his pages, but the vast majority of those are people of color.
A lyrical and educational look at the water cycle. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-58469-615-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dawn Publications
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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