A cute and informative small-scale construction how-to.
Meet the helpers you’ll need if you want to start building!
Three kids (one pale-skinned, one tan-skinned, and one brown-skinned, firmly outlined against white space) grasp various household tools. Each implement, accurately pictured (though anthropomorphized), stares back with impish, googly eyes. A goofy dog holds up cards with advice (for instance, check with an adult before beginning a project), demonstrates the importance of wearing safety glasses, and assists the trio. As the children work on their project, an unseen narrator describes the tools they use, from pencil and ruler to tape measure, vise, handsaw, hammer, screwdriver, wrench, and more. The kids secure their structure using a level, nails, screws, and nuts and bolts. A tool belt spanning the pooch’s waist keeps everything handy and in its place. And when the job is done, the youngsters must still gather up each item and put it back in the toolbox or hang it on its hook on the wall. Slonim’s careful illustrations provide a precise, close look at each tool. The kids’ intently focused expressions suggest the seriousness of their efforts, while the tools’ personalization and the two animals (a bird as well as the dog) add a note of whimsy. The rhyming text is inconsistent on rhythm but full of accessible, clear, specific, practical advice, and the finished project is perfect: a doghouse for the helpful pooch.
A cute and informative small-scale construction how-to. (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9781536242072
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
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 good introduction to observation, data, and trying again.
Cece loves asking “why” and “what if.”
Her parents encourage her, as does her science teacher, Ms. Curie (a wink to adult readers). When Cece and her best friend, Isaac, pair up for a science project, they choose zoology, brainstorming questions they might research. They decide to investigate whether dogs eat vegetables, using Cece’s schnauzer, Einstein, and the next day they head to Cece’s lab (inside her treehouse). Wearing white lab coats, the two observe their subject and then offer him different kinds of vegetables, alone and with toppings. Cece is discouraged when Einstein won’t eat them. She complains to her parents, “Maybe I’m not a real scientist after all….Our project was boring.” Just then, Einstein sniffs Cece’s dessert, leading her to try a new way to get Einstein to eat vegetables. Cece learns that “real scientists have fun finding answers too.” Harrison’s clean, bright illustrations add expression and personality to the story. Science report inserts are reminiscent of The Magic Schoolbus books, with less detail. Biracial Cece is a brown, freckled girl with curly hair; her father is white, and her mother has brown skin and long, black hair; Isaac and Ms. Curie both have pale skin and dark hair. While the book doesn’t pack a particularly strong emotional or educational punch, this endearing protagonist earns a place on the children’s STEM shelf.
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again. (glossary) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-249960-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
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