An inspiring overview of a life dedicated to essential eco-causes.
A tribute to the life’s work and message of renowned naturalist, author, and filmmaker David Attenborough.
Though light on biographical specifics, even in the afterword, this profile does begin with a young David bicycling out of a smoke-choked English city into a green woodland, where the discovery of an ammonite fossil launches a lifelong interest in wild places and their animal residents and in telling people about both. In a memorable opening image, our planet is overlaid with a parade of dozens of animals that spiral out to finally portray one small, familiar, casually dressed gent. Illustrator John Rocco places Attenborough in paired settings; ugly urban sprawl, razed forests, dead reefs, and barren wastes are depicted alongside lush rain forests, vistas of alternative energy sources, and undersea reaches teeming with marine life. These images provide visual expression to Attenborough’s later appeals to live on the Earth more responsibly and to “rewild” overfished oceans and mistreated lands. Attenborough remains a distant figure here but has become undeniably iconic and “our connection to the natural world” and “the voice of nature” over seven decades. In a grand symbolic final scene, he leads a racially diverse line of people from a city of eco-friendly high-rises into an even greener future. For fledgling conservationists and climate activists, the backmatter includes both leads to further resources and a starter table of “Problems” and “Solutions.”
An inspiring overview of a life dedicated to essential eco-causes. (author’s note) (Picture-book biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593618097
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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
BOOK REVIEW
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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