A fascinating story.
An educated horse tells his own story.
Jim was meant to be a racehorse, but he is born awkward. Jim’s “human,” William “Doc” Key, is a Black man who was born into slavery and educated alongside the White children on the plantation. Jim relates how Doc loved to read about animal medicine and became so skilled at it that he was often called upon to treat animals on farms and even humans. When slavery ended, Doc prospered as a veterinarian. After Jim’s birth in 1889, Doc and his wife notice Jim’s remarkable intelligence, and Doc spends time teaching Jim the alphabet and numbers. Jim learns so many impressive skills that he and Doc take their show on the road and astonish audiences, including presidents and visitors to the 1904 world’s fair. Jim can spell, sort mail, use a telephone, and solve arithmetic problems. But the presentation is not just for show. Doc believes that the only skills needed to train animals are patience and kindness, and he hopes that seeing Jim’s intelligence will influence people to treat animals kindly. The text is written as a first-person narrative from the horse’s point of view, with occasional “diary” entries from particular locations and years. This style works well to draw readers into the story and to reinforce the idea that animals have feelings. The grainy, speckled texture of the illustrations gives them a slightly unfinished appearance, but the settings and characters are endearing and engaging.
A fascinating story. (notes) (Picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8075-0611-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
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
BOOK REVIEW
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