The poetry and prose form more of an uneasy détente than an integrated whole, but the comical pictures and the wordplay in...
“Trilobites the Dust,” and so do the rest of a cast of extinct creatures in this sequel (prequel?) to Last Laughs: Animal Epitaphs (2012).
In chronological order from the Paleozoic to the Cenozoic eras, dinosaurs, prehistoric reptiles, and early mammals offer memento mori in pithy verse. “Iguanodon, Alas Long Gone,” for example runs: “Iguano dawned, / Iguano dined, / Iguano done, / Iguano gone.” With similar brevity, “Plesiosaur Sticks His Neck Out” of Loch Ness and has it chopped through by a Pict (a footnote admits the anachronism), and unknown agents leave “Pterrible Pterosaur Pterminated.” In later times, a saber-toothed cat (“Tiger, tiger, hunting bright / near the tar pits, late at night”), a dire wolf, and a woolly mammoth are all depicted trapped in the gooey muck. Each poem comes with an explanatory note, and a prose afterword titled “A Little About Layers” discusses how the fossil record works. Timmins reflects this secondary informational agenda in his illustrations without taking it too seriously—providing a spade-bearded, popeyed paleontologist who resembles a spud in shape and color to usher readers through galleries of fossil remnants or fleshed-out specimens meeting their ends with shocked expressions.
The poetry and prose form more of an uneasy détente than an integrated whole, but the comical pictures and the wordplay in these dino demises provide sufficient lift. (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-58089-706-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
Some issues with design and tone but a mostly worthy appreciation of the women who stood and stand (if, sometimes, only...
“We know Eleanor Roosevelt, Abigail Adams, / but what about those other madams”?
For each first lady from Martha Washington (“Raised to be a planter’s wife, / taught how one behaves / as mistress of the household / and the household slaves”) to immigrant Melania Trump, Singer offers a thumbnail character study in verse that’s paired to an ink-and-wash figure by Carpenter. If there is any common theme, it’s mortality: Martha Jefferson, who died 19 years before her husband’s election, is represented by a framed silhouette over a silent pianoforte; Peggy Taylor lies prostrate before a tombstone; a veiled Jackie Kennedy looks out from an antique TV screen. Singer likewise often includes mention of lost husbands or children among references to favored causes and personal accomplishments. On the other hand, Mary Todd Lincoln, generously summed up as “an unlucky woman—kindly and cursed,” poses regally as her brown-skinned dressmaker (unnamed in the poem but identified in the endnotes) cuts up an American flag to make a gown while Abe stands nearby, gaping comically at a sheaf of bills. Brief profiles at the end add some detail but mostly just recap the poems’ content, and a pictorial timeline on the rear endpapers would serve as an index if the jacket flap didn’t cover a good portion of it.
Some issues with design and tone but a mostly worthy appreciation of the women who stood and stand (if, sometimes, only figuratively) next to the presidents. (Poetry/collective biography. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4847-2660-0
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
Enticing fare for fans of all things Paleo.
Up-close introductions to seven Paleozoic monsters, with some outsized modern survivors added for good measure.
Writing with crowd-pleasing vivacity—Arthropleura “was bigger than a basketball player. And with up to 80 quick-moving, grasping legs, it could have easily gripped and smothered one too!”—Becker profiles a set of humongous arthropods that, in Bindon’s exactly detailed scenes, crawl, slither, glide, swim, or fly past with all-too-convincing realism. All come with (fossil) range maps and human silhouettes for size comparisons, and most are placed in natural settings, with other fauna of the period visible in the backgrounds. In her descriptive notes, the author maintains a proper caution, following current thinking in suggesting that heightened levels of atmospheric oxygen made such uncommon mass possible but noting that “fave snacks,” life cycles, and causes of extinction are speculations. Following the prehistoric parade, a select set of today’s biggest creepy-crawlies bring up the rear, capped by a menacing science-fictional megabug that looks like an ant-scorpion hybrid. Though no replacement for Timothy Bradley’s (sadly out of print) Paleo Bugs (2008) for those lucky enough still to have it, the art here has more of a dramatic flair, and the resource lists at the end are fresher.
Enticing fare for fans of all things Paleo. (glossary, timeline, index) (Informational picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77138-811-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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