by Jillian Roberts ; illustrated by Jane Heinrichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 3, 2020
Accessible and informative—but look elsewhere to get kids excited about the topic.
This installment in the World Around Us series addresses how humans can affect the environment in good and bad ways.
The most memorable part of this book is the foreword, which describes how the Earth is the only habitable planet we know of, setting the tone for why we humans must take care of it. The text then uses a Q-and-A format, with questions in large, colored display type on the verso and answers (about a half-page paragraph in large type) on the recto. A sidebar on the far right introduces more details about a topic on each spread (for example, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch). Large photographs are set on a lightly patterned pastel background, with drawings of children in various poses filling space around the text and photographs. The text begins with a nature walk during which a child notices litter in the forest, progresses through questions about pollution and what people can do about it, and ends with an emphasis on the sort of innovation and problem-solving that will be needed to save our planet. Unfortunately, the straightforward text does not sustain the level of interest promised by the dramatic foreword; the Q-and-A format works to bring in different topics, but it leaves openings for readers’ minds to wander. While the photographs are well chosen and child-friendly, the drawings distract from rather than add to the presentation.
Accessible and informative—but look elsewhere to get kids excited about the topic. (note, resources) (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4598-2100-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
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by Dalai Lama & Desmond Tutu ; illustrated by Rafael López ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 2022
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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by Kate Messner ; illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 13, 2022
More thoughtful, sometimes exhilarating encounters with nature.
In a new entry in the Over and Under series, a paddleboarder glimpses humpback whales leaping, floats over a populous kelp forest, and explores life on a beach and in a tide pool.
In this tale inspired by Messner’s experiences in Monterey Bay in California, a young tan-skinned narrator, along with their light-skinned mom and tan-skinned dad, observes in quiet, lyrical language sights and sounds above and below the sea’s serene surface. Switching perspectives and angles of view and often leaving the family’s red paddleboards just tiny dots bobbing on distant swells, Neal’s broad seascapes depict in precise detail bat stars and anchovies, kelp bass, and sea otters going about their business amid rocky formations and the swaying fronds of kelp…and, further out, graceful moon jellies and—thrillingly—massive whales in open waters beneath gliding pelicans and other shorebirds. After returning to the beach at day’s end to search for shells and to spot anemones and decorator crabs, the child ends with nighttime dreams of stars in the sky meeting stars in the sea. Appended nature notes on kelp and 21 other types of sealife fill in details about patterns and relationships in this rich ecosystem. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
More thoughtful, sometimes exhilarating encounters with nature. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-79720-347-8
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
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