A true tale of life in space, ably if not spectacularly spun.
The story of an experiment designed to answer a high school student’s question to NASA.
Told in first person—perhaps not the best choice as the arachnid narrator is called upon to describe her own death and subsequent events in the later going—the chronicle begins in 1972 with a query about whether spiders can spin webs in space. Popped into small tubes with dead flies for provisions, Arabella and another orb spider, Anita, were transported to Skylab 3 in 1973 and released into cages where, after a day or so of floating and a “wonky” preliminary effort, both actually produced creditable versions of their earthly webs. A better title for this might be Spiders in Space, because along with a tally of scientific findings, Arabella goes on post-mortem to describe several later visits to the International Space Station by various eight-legged relatives (one of whom, a Johnson jumping spider named Nefertiti, actually “made it home again” in 2012). “That’s one small step for man but one giant leap for spiders!” she concludes. The simple illustrations largely tend to close-ups of Arabella, and if all of the adults in view seem to be White, Kordić does tuck in one late scene of a racially diverse trio of modern young children comparing a “spidernaut” with a specimen in a classroom terrarium.
A true tale of life in space, ably if not spectacularly spun. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8075-0441-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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
A good overview of this complex, essential organ, with an energetic seasoning of silliness.
An introduction to the lead guitar and vocalist for the Brainiacs—the human brain.
The brain (familiar to readers of Seluk’s “The Awkward Yeti” webcomic, which spun off the adult title Heart and Brain, 2015) looks like a dodgeball with arms and legs—pinkish, sturdy, and roundish, with a pair of square-framed spectacles bestowing an air of importance and hipness. Other organs of the body—tongue, lungs, stomach, muscle, and heart—are featured as members of the brain’s rock band (the verso of the dust jacket is a poster of the band). Seluk’s breezy, conversational prose and brightly colored, boldly outlined cartoon illustrations deliver basic information. The brain’s role in keeping the heart beating and other automatic functions, directing body movements, interpreting sights and sounds, remembering smells and tastes, and regulating sleep and hunger are all explained, prose augmented by dialogue balloons and information sidebars. Seluk points out, importantly, that feelings originate in the brain: “You can control how you react…but your feelings happen no matter what.” The parodied album covers on the front endpapers (including the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Green Day, Run DMC, Queen, Nirvana) will amuse parents—or at least grandparents—and the rear endpapers serve up band members’ clever social media and texting screenshots. Backmatter includes a glossary and further brain trivia but no resources or bibliography.
A good overview of this complex, essential organ, with an energetic seasoning of silliness. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-16700-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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