Face it, Szpirglas tells us, the world we live in is definitely gross—and we’re pretty yucky, too. Read on, and you’ll find yourself up to your oily, sweaty, bacteria-filled armpits in verifiable facts and figures about the mighty microbial wildlife that breeds and excretes in and on all living things. Cho’s colorful cartoon scientists, A and B, lead readers through an intimate examination of topics inappropriate for the dinner-table. Chapter titles like “Mad About Mucus,” “What a Gas!,” “Mind your Pees and Q’s,” and “V is for Vomit” will entice readers to delve into their favorite foul and fascinating facts; and while certainly less than clinical, broad comic-strip illustrations throughout provide lighthearted visual context and appeal for those who delight in the disgusting. Szpirglas, who describes himself as “Just a guy who happens to think weird animals and gross facts are cool,” lists 38 researchers and experts consulted in an impressive concluding page of “Amazingly Awesome Acknowledgments.” (Nonfiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: April 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-894379-64-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Maple Tree/Firefly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Simon tackles his latest natural disaster in trademark but not very modern style. Information on hurricanes is clearly presented but poorly organized, and lacks any sense of drama or story. Aimed at the same age group as Dorothy Souza’s Hurricanes (1996) and Patricia Lauber’s Hurricanes: Earth’s Mightiest Storms, this falls short of both, often going into too much pedantic detail—the wind speeds of tropical depressions versus tropical storms—while failing to put needed perspective on some of the more eye-popping statistics. A hurricane can move more than a million cubic miles of atmosphere per second—but the naked numbers are essentially meaningless to students who think of millions in terms of ballplayers’ salaries and can’t imagine cubic miles at all. Photos of smashed houses and boats in front yards add excitement, but others—plain clouds?—detract; some are very grainy when blown up to the requisite full page. Formulaic and a numbing read-aloud. (Nonfiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-688-16291-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
The author of Cod’s Tale (2001) again demonstrates a dab hand at recasting his adult work for a younger audience. Here the topic is salt, “the only rock eaten by human beings,” and, as he engrossingly demonstrates, “the object of wars and revolutions” throughout recorded history and before. Between his opening disquisition on its chemical composition and a closing timeline, he explores salt’s sources and methods of extraction, its worldwide economic influences from prehistoric domestication of animals to Gandhi’s Salt March, its many uses as a preservative and industrial product, its culinary and even, as the source for words like “salary” and “salad,” its linguistic history. Along with lucid maps and diagrams, Schindler supplies detailed, sometimes fanciful scenes to go along, finishing with a view of young folk chowing down on orders of French fries as ghostly figures from history look on. Some of Kurlansky’s claims are exaggerated (the Erie and other canals were built to transport more than just salt, for instance), and there are no leads to further resources, but this salutary (in more ways than one) micro-history will have young readers lifting their shakers in tribute. (Picture book/nonfiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-399-23998-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006
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