COLA FOUNTAINS AND SPATTERING PAINT BOMBS

Name: COLA FOUNTAINS AND SPATTERING PAINT BOMBS
Author: Jesse Goosens
ISBN: 978-1-935954-52-1

by Jesse Goosens ; illustrated by Linde Faas ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2016

Goosens admits that all the activities in the book have been described and/or done on the Internet and includes a list of...

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This collection of science tricks and experiments will have kids exploding things, launching them, or making them turn colors.

The activities included here feature such popular (and overdone) experiments as diet Coke and Mentos, baking soda–and-vinegar volcanoes, ooblek, elephant toothpaste, growing crystals, borax slime, and dissolving an egg’s shell. Mixed in with these are a few relatively dangerous ones: heating, cooling, and cracking glass marbles; making a teeter-totter of a candle burning at both ends; microwaving a grape to make a fireball; and making rockets of tea bags and matches. (There is a note about adult supervision, and there are also symbols delineating each experiment’s difficulty, messiness, explosiveness, etc.) Many directions are sorely in need of illustrated steps—words alone are not enough, and Faas’ illustrations are purely humorous. Several spreads are not arranged in linear fashion, so the “What You Need” boxes (which already tend to get lost on the page) may be after the “What Do You Do?” or the “Why Does It Work?” may come first, ruining surprise. Many of these explanations are rudimentary, incomplete, and/or unsatisfying: “The vinegar and baking soda combine to form carbon dioxide, which makes everything fizz and foam.” Readers will also regret the sprinkling of typos.

Goosens admits that all the activities in the book have been described and/or done on the Internet and includes a list of websites; young experimenters would do better to turn there first. (Nonfiction. 6-12)

Pub Date: April 1, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-935954-52-1

Page Count: 104

Publisher: Lemniscaat USA

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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1001 BEES

by Joanna Rzezak ; illustrated by Joanna Rzezak ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 18, 2021

Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.

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This book is buzzing with trivia.

Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.

Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)

Pub Date: May 18, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | CHILDREN'S ANIMALS

- BOOK REVIEW
1001 BIRDS
by Joanna Rzezak ; illustrated by Joanna Rzezak

- BOOK REVIEW
1001 ANTS
by Joanna Rzezak ; illustrated by Joanna Rzezak

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BUTT OR FACE?

From the Butt or Face? series

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)