Ryder (Mouse Tail Moon, 2002, etc.) follows a fledgling birder as she watches and cares for birds in the wild. Ambience rather than identification is her goal, so she endeavors to catch a little bit of each bird’s personality: starlings creeping about in the grass, finches fluttering as they take a bath, sparrows mobbing power lines like so many bleacher bums. An effort is made to convey some ornithological information in passing—what foods certain birds eat, which birds migrate south, which will stay for the winter—and Kwas’s (A Rumpus of Rhymes, 2001, etc.) color-shot art is particularly deliberate when it comes to the birds themselves, though more stylistic when it comes to the people and architecture. The staccato prose works well enough when speaking of the birds—“Ever-so-hungry birds watch your shadow slowly stretching on the ground. They see you fill the feeder with sweet seeds, then move away”—but the same cannot be said when it tries to catch the wonder of flight, when it gets all too whiffy and fails to hold: “They flicker here and there between leaf and leaf, between earth and sky. Wild birds take the high path over your head under the clouds.” Still, there is enough sustaining natural imagery here to launch more than a few young birders. (Picture book. 4-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-027738-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s nothing especially new here, but the good-natured celebration of books, reading, and libraries will charm fellow...
A porcine hoarder of books learns to read—and to share.
The Book Hog’s obsession is clear from the start. Short declarative sentences describe his enthusiasm (“The Book Hog loved books”), catalog the things he likes about the printed page, and eventually reveal his embarrassing secret (“He didn’t know how to read”). While the text is straightforward, plenty of amusing visual details will entertain young listeners. A picture of the Book Hog thumbing through a book while seated on the toilet should induce some giggles. The allusive name of a local bookshop (“Wilbur’s”) as well as the covers of a variety of familiar and much-loved books (including some of the author’s own) offer plenty to pore over. And the fact that the titles become legible only after our hero learns to read is a particularly nice touch. A combination of vignettes, single-page illustrations and double-page spreads that feature Pizzoli’s characteristic style—heavy black outlines, a limited palette of mostly salmon and mint green, and simple shapes—move the plot along briskly. Librarians will appreciate the positive portrayal of Miss Olive, an elephant who welcomes the Book Hog warmly to storytime, though it’s unlikely most will be able to match her superlative level of service.
There’s nothing especially new here, but the good-natured celebration of books, reading, and libraries will charm fellow bibliophiles, and the author’s fans will enjoy making another anthropomorphic animal friend. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-368-03689-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity.
Buzz and his buzzy buddy open a spinoff series of nonfiction early readers with an aquarium visit.
Buzz: “Like other fish, sharks breathe through gills.” Fly Guy: “GILLZZ.” Thus do the two pop-eyed cartoon tour guides squire readers past a plethora of cramped but carefully labeled color photos depicting dozens of kinds of sharks in watery settings, along with close-ups of skin, teeth and other anatomical features. In the bite-sized blocks of narrative text, challenging vocabulary words like “carnivores” and “luminescence” come with pronunciation guides and lucid in-context definitions. Despite all the flashes of dentifrice and references to prey and smelling blood in the water, there is no actual gore or chowing down on display. Sharks are “so cool!” proclaims Buzz at last, striding out of the gift shop. “I can’t wait for our next field trip!” (That will be Fly Guy Presents: Space, scheduled for September 2013.)
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity. (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-50771-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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