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ENDANGERED ANIMALS

Name: ENDANGERED ANIMALS
Author: Jo A. Steele

WILDLIFE AROUND THE WORLD PEOPLE MUST PROTECT

by Jo A. Steele illustrated by Richard Eijkenbroek ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 17, 2017

Treads familiar ground, but the seriousness of endangered animals makes the theme a perennial one; young readers who love...

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Beautifully illustrated animals in their native environments by Eijkenbroek (Somewhere Out There, 2016) populate the pages of debut author Steele’s fact book about several endangered species.

Starting with many kids’ favorite, elephants, Steele catalogs 17 species of endangered animals. Mainly mammals, each animal is accompanied by a fascinating fact. Elephants, for example, have a pouch in their throats to store water. Polar bears have unusual dots, or papillae, on their paws to grip slippery surfaces. Indiana bats hibernate; crimson-wing flamingos get their pink hue from carotene in their food; and red-eyed tree frogs “have suction tapes on their feet.” Readers already familiar with animal facts may still find some new information as well as a few species that are less familiar, but most of the entries cover known territory. Steele, a Canadian, lists units in both metric and standard, and she gives a size comparison to help kids imagine animals’ weights: a male Siberian tiger is “the size of a large piano,” while sea otters can weigh “as much as a large television!” The book uses a child-friendly, conversational tone and relies on cool facts for structure rather than overarching themes. The painterly illustrations are realistic looking, featuring habitats that give context for where the animals live. Some nature scenes may upset young readers, including the illustration of a crocodile snatching a long-winged pink bird out of the sky. The cover features a giraffe, and the front papers show a snow leopard; however, neither appears in the book; they are represented on the associated website instead. Frequently, the text offers information, such as a description of the nests of chimpanzees, that isn’t included in the image—a missed opportunity. Five percent of the purchase price of each book will be donated to the Canadian Wildlife Federation.

Treads familiar ground, but the seriousness of endangered animals makes the theme a perennial one; young readers who love fact collections about animals will want to make a spot for this one.

Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2017

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: FriesenPress

Review Posted Online: May 24, 2017

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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WRECKING BALL

From the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series , Vol. 14

by Jeff Kinney ; illustrated by Jeff Kinney ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 5, 2019

Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.

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The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.

When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.

Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)

Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Amulet/Abrams

Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019

Categories:

GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY

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LITTLE BLUE TRUCK'S CHRISTMAS

by Alice Schertle ; illustrated by Jill McElmurry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 2014

Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own...

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The sturdy Little Blue Truck is back for his third adventure, this time delivering Christmas trees to his band of animal pals.

The truck is decked out for the season with a Christmas wreath that suggests a nose between headlights acting as eyeballs. Little Blue loads up with trees at Toad’s Trees, where five trees are marked with numbered tags. These five trees are counted and arithmetically manipulated in various ways throughout the rhyming story as they are dropped off one by one to Little Blue’s friends. The final tree is reserved for the truck’s own use at his garage home, where he is welcomed back by the tree salestoad in a neatly circular fashion. The last tree is already decorated, and Little Blue gets a surprise along with readers, as tiny lights embedded in the illustrations sparkle for a few seconds when the last page is turned. Though it’s a gimmick, it’s a pleasant surprise, and it fits with the retro atmosphere of the snowy country scenes. The short, rhyming text is accented with colored highlights, red for the animal sounds and bright green for the numerical words in the Christmas-tree countdown.

Little Blue’s fans will enjoy the animal sounds and counting opportunities, but it’s the sparkling lights on the truck’s own tree that will put a twinkle in a toddler’s eyes. (Picture book. 2-5)