Globalization is integral to today’s society, and everyone, children and adults, needs a better sense of geography, but this atlas with old-fashioned watercolor illustrations and painted maps that are difficult to read is not the best way for kids to learn. It includes tidbits of information about history, holidays, inventions and foods, but it lacks area and population figures. Children in the middle-elementary grades need clear maps and photos to gain a sense of reality about the world. Warm fuzzy feelings (“Nature has given our planet amazing landforms”) and disparate fun facts have a place, but unfortunately this “introduction,” with its pop-up globe and stickers (not seen, but they may be the best part of the package) does little to de-romanticize the world’s cultures (in Ho Chi Minh City, “people ride bicycles instead of driving cars”). This oversimplified approach may work in other books in the A Child’s Introduction to… series, but in this subject area, The National Geographic World Atlas for Young Explorers (2007) is a better choice for home, schools and public libraries. (bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-57912-832-6
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
Who is next in the ocean food chain? Pallotta has a surprising answer in this picture book glimpse of one curious boy. Danny, fascinated by plankton, takes his dory and rows out into the ocean, where he sees shrimp eating those plankton, fish sand eels eating shrimp, mackerel eating fish sand eels, bluefish chasing mackerel, tuna after bluefish, and killer whales after tuna. When an enormous humpbacked whale arrives on the scene, Danny’s dory tips over and he has to swim for a large rock or become—he worries’someone’s lunch. Surreal acrylic illustrations in vivid blues and red extend the story of a small boy, a small boat, and a vast ocean, in which the laws of the food chain are paramount. That the boy has been bathtub-bound during this entire imaginative foray doesn’t diminish the suspense, and the facts Pallotta presents are solidly researched. A charming fish tale about the one—the boy—that got away. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-88106-075-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Koller (Bouncing on the Bed, p. 143, etc.) portrays a Narragansett nickommoh, or celebratory gathering, from which it is very likely the tradition of Thanksgiving was drawn. As explained in an exemplary note—brief, clear, interesting—at the end of the book, these gatherings occurred 13 times a year, once each lunar month. The harvest gathering is one of the larger gatherings: a great lodge was built, copious food was prepared, and music and dance extended deep into the night. Koller laces the text with a good selection of Narragansett words, found in the glossary (although there is no key to pronunciation, even for words such as Taqountikeeswush and Puttuckquapuonck). The text is written as a chanted prose poem, with much repetition, which can be both incantatory and hackneyed, as when “frost lies thick on the fields at dawn, and the winged ones pass overhead in great numbers.” Mostly the phrases are stirring—as are Sewall’s scratchboard evocations—and often inspirational—for this nickommoh puts to shame what has become known as the day before the launch of the holiday shopping season. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-81094-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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