A well-written tribute to a deserving champion of science.
A thorough biography of early African American scientist Charles Henry Turner.
From a young age, “questions hopped through…Turner’s mind like grasshoppers.” His teacher encouraged him to “go and find out,” and that is what he spent his life doing. He attended college when most colleges didn’t accept African Americans, and he kept asking questions as he studied biology. The “indefatigable scientist” studied spiders: Two spreads explain how he learned that “each spider wove a web just right for its home.” He studied crustaceans and ants, bees and moths. His significant findings are explained both in the illustrations and in the lucid paragraphs of text that describe the experiments and his conclusions. The importance of his findings in the field is made clear, and the curiosity and hard work that led to them are the focus. One spread mentions the racial prejudice he lived through and his service to the community. His work is cast in the light of uplifting humanity: “He wrote that biology could help people see the connections among all living things.” The digital illustrations depict people, creatures, and experiments in thick black lines and swaths of color that help readers understand the science being discussed. This extensively researched, jam-packed text intrigues and inspires with Turner’s example of discovery and hard-won, meaningful contributions to knowledge about life.
A well-written tribute to a deserving champion of science. (author’s note, timeline, sources, notes) (Picture book/biography. 7-10)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-62979-558-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An immersive dunk into a vast subject—and on course for shorter attention spans.
In the wake of Everything Awesome About Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Beasts! (2019), Lowery spins out likewise frothy arrays of facts and observations about sharks, whales, giant squid, and smaller but no less extreme (or at least extremely interesting) sea life.
He provides plenty of value-added features, from overviews of oceanic zones and environments to jokes, drawing instructions, and portrait galleries suitable for copying or review. While not one to pass up any opportunity to, for instance, characterize ambergris as “whale vomit perfume” or the clownfish’s protective coating as “snot armor,” he also systematically introduces members of each of the eight orders of sharks, devotes most of a page to the shark’s electroreceptive ampullae of Lorenzini, and even sheds light on the unobvious differences between jellyfish and the Portuguese man-of-war or the reason why the blue octopus is said to have “arms” rather than “tentacles.” He also argues persuasively that sharks have gotten a bad rap (claiming that more people are killed each year by…vending machines) and closes with pleas to be concerned about plastic waste, to get involved in conservation efforts, and (cannily) to get out and explore our planet because (quoting Jacques-Yves Cousteau) “People protect what they love.” Human figures, some with brown skin, pop up occasionally to comment in the saturated color illustrations. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 45% of actual size.)
An immersive dunk into a vast subject—and on course for shorter attention spans. (bibliography, list of organizations) (Nonfiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-35973-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Quick and slick, but ably makes its case.
The distinguished jurist stands tall as a role model.
Not literally tall, of course—not only was she actually tiny but, as with all the other bobbleheaded caricatures in the “Ordinary People Change the World” series, Ginsburg, sporting huge eyeglasses on an outsize head over black judicial robes even in childhood, remains a doll-like figure in all of Eliopoulos’ cartoon scenes. It’s in the frank acknowledgment of the sexism and antisemitism she resolutely overcame as she went from reading about “real female heroes” to becoming one—and also the clear statement of how she so brilliantly applied the principle of “tikkun olam” (“repairing the world”) in her career to the notion that women and men should have the same legal rights—that her stature comes clear. For all the brevity of his profile, Meltzer spares some attention for her private life, too (“This is Marty. He loved me, and he loved my brains. So I married him!”). Other judicial activists of the past and present, all identified and including the current crop of female Supreme Court justices, line up with a diversely hued and abled group of younger followers to pay tribute in final scenes. “Fight for the things you care about,” as a typically savvy final quote has it, “but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
Quick and slick, but ably makes its case. (timeline, photos, source list, further reading) (Picture-book biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780593533338
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Rocky Pond Books/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
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