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CAN I RECYCLE THIS?

Name: CAN I RECYCLE THIS?
Author: Jennie Romer
ISBN: 978-0-593-20407-8

A KID'S GUIDE TO BETTER RECYCLING AND HOW TO REDUCE SINGLE-USE PLASTICS

by Jennie Romer ; illustrated by Christie Young ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 14, 2023

Robust material to get the next generation of environmentalists on the right path.

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What is recycling? Why and how should we do it?

Romer, a lawyer, sustainability expert, and plastic bag foe, published a comprehensive and well-received guidebook to recycling for adults in 2021. Now she and her illustrator return with this lively edition aimed at young readers. In a conversational voice, she explains the need for recycling—to conserve natural resources and avoid contributing to our garbage problem. Romer clearly explains the process, describing the procedure and equipment used in big recycling centers. Even with all the sorting and smashing, not all the potentially recyclable materials will be reused—a business must want to buy them. In order for the plastic to be reused, the materials will need to be melted, extruded into strips, and cut into tiny pieces called nurdles, the basis for new plastic things. Finally, Romer provides extensive examples of what can and cannot be recycled, depending on the facility, and what readers might use instead of single-use plastic. Here, she returns to her long-running campaign against plastic bags. Plastic bags recycled at grocery stores do have a market, but her advice to bring your own bag is still sound. All of this is engagingly illustrated with Young’s amusing spot images; the depictions of anthropomorphized bottles, cereal boxes, and other items brim with personality. There are plenty of books about recycling for this audience but few with such instant appeal. (This book was reviewed digitally; this review has been updated for accuracy.)

Robust material to get the next generation of environmentalists on the right path. (author’s note, further resources, glossary) (Informational picture book. 5-9)

Pub Date: March 14, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-593-20407-8

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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BUTT OR FACE?

by Kari Lavelle ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2023

A gleeful game for budding naturalists.

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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ODE TO GRAPEFRUIT
by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Bryan Collier

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WE MOVE THE WORLD
by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Nabi H. Ali

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ANIMAL ARCHITECTS

From the Amazing Animals series

by Amy Cherrix ; illustrated by Chris Sasaki ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 2021

An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort.

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A look at the unique ways that 11 globe-spanning animal species construct their homes.

Each creature garners two double-page spreads, which Cherrix enlivens with compelling and at-times jaw-dropping facts. The trapdoor spider constructs a hidden burrow door from spider silk. Sticky threads, fanning from the entrance, vibrate “like a silent doorbell” when walked upon by unwitting insect prey. Prairie dogs expertly dig communal burrows with designated chambers for “sleeping, eating, and pooping.” The largest recorded “town” occupied “25,000 miles and housed as many as 400 million prairie dogs!” Female ants are “industrious insects” who can remove more than a ton of dirt from their colony in a year. Cathedral termites use dirt and saliva to construct solar-cooled towers 30 feet high. Sasaki’s lively pictures borrow stylistically from the animal compendiums of mid-20th-century children’s lit; endpapers and display type elegantly suggest the blues of cyanotypes and architectural blueprints. Jarringly, the lead spread cheerfully extols the prowess of the corals of the Great Barrier Reef, “the world’s largest living structure,” while ignoring its accelerating, human-abetted destruction. Calamitously, the honeybee hive is incorrectly depicted as a paper-wasps’ nest, and the text falsely states that chewed beeswax “hardens into glue to shape the hive.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)

An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort. (selected sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)