Continuing in the lapidary visual style that made hits of Stellaluna (1993) and Verdi (1997), Cannon illustrates this tale of a hard-luck jungle cockroach with exquisitely detailed and realistic ground-level views that seem to glow from within. Crickwing, so dubbed after a near-fatal encounter with a toad, likes to play with his food, constructing faces or whole animals, and becoming so absorbed that all too often some predator arrives before he can chow down. Finally he begins taking out his annoyance by bullying a column of smaller leaf-cutter ants—whereupon the leaf-cutter queen orders him seized and left as a sacrifice to the army ants. Saved from certain destruction by two kind-hearted leaf-cutter workers, Crickwing repays them by designing a giant anteater made from vegetation. Its appearance causes the army ants to flee in panic. Though Cannon’s art is far different in technique from James Marshall’s, there is a certain similarity in the way both can pack worlds of expression into eyes that are little more than dots. The insects here may be more or less accurately drawn, but they all have distinct personalities too, and their faces (as well as the occasional drawing of bugs strutting or madly fleeing) will have children laughing in all the right places. Moreover, his wing healed by the end, Crickwing is not only a hero, but an elegant, graceful beauty as well. Readers may not lose their aversion to cockroaches, even with the author’s informative, appreciative closing notes, but they’ll enjoy the adventure. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-201790-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
The story feels a bit contrived, but Ada will be a welcome addition to the small circle of science-loving girls in the...
Using science and technology, third-grader Ada Lace kicks off her new series by solving a mystery even with her leg in a cast.
Temporarily housebound after a badly executed bungee jump, Ada uses binoculars to document the ecosystem of her new neighborhood in San Francisco. She records her observations in a field journal, a project that intrigues new friend Nina, who lives nearby. When they see that Ms. Reed’s dog, Marguerite, is missing, they leap to the conclusion that it has been stolen. Nina does the legwork and Ada provides the technology for their search for the dognapper. Story-crafting takes a back seat to scene-setting in this series kickoff that introduces the major players. As part of the series formula, science topics and gadgetry are integrated into the stories and further explained in a “Behind the Science” afterword. This installment incorporates drones, a wireless camera, gecko gloves, and the Turing test as well as the concept of an ecosystem. There are no ethnic indicators in the text, but the illustrations reveal that Ada, her family, and bratty neighbor Milton are white; Nina appears to be Southeast Asian; and Mr. Peebles, an inventor who lives nearby, is black.
The story feels a bit contrived, but Ada will be a welcome addition to the small circle of science-loving girls in the chapter-book world. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8599-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
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