Long for a sustained read-through but rich in tantalizing tidbits for young globe-trotters.
For armchair travelers, quick flits through the countries of the world (plus a few extras), with keepsake snippets of facts, foods, or festivals for each.
After rightly acknowledging at the outset that the notion of country is a fuzzy one, Fullman proceeds on by continent to alight in 199 of them, adding Antarctica and a roundup of territories at the end. Steering clear of almanac-style barrages of descriptions and statistics, he supplies just a flag and location map for each half- to two-page entry, five “key” facts, and a handful of observations. Most of the last focus on distinctive celebrations, street food, wildlife, or natural wonders, but the author isn’t shy about referring to recent civil wars and ongoing political tensions either. If a stop in “Israel and the Palestinian Territories” or his failure to mention that Vietnam was once two countries rub some older readers the wrong way, younger ones will more likely zero in on how people in Caracas roller-skate to church during the Christmas season; that Bolivia has 37 official languages (while the U.S. has none); or, in contrast to Belgium’s “drool-worthy” cuisine, hákarl (fermented shark served in Iceland) “has a very powerful ammonia-like taste (apparently).” Overall the content is remarkably reliable. Underscoring frequent nods to the racial and ethnic diversity of populations in many locales, the small human figures that Blake scatters among her stylized vignettes are mostly dark-skinned.
Long for a sustained read-through but rich in tantalizing tidbits for young globe-trotters. (index, glossary) (Nonfiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-913519-47-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Welbeck Publishing Group
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
An ill-conceived exercise in anthropomorphism.
Over 100 wild animals describe their jobs in human terms.
As a useful premise or even a viable conceit, this is an abject failure as nonfiction. Giving all 112 creatures introduced here different occupations, Hunt misleads with artificial cognates: the hyena tells readers: “I am a comedian”; the porcupine announces: “I am an acupuncturist.” One- or two-sentence explanatory notes often muddy the waters further: “I laugh hysterically to show how important I am in the group,” the hyena says. Moreover, an opening assertion that in nature animals help “their neighbors to have better lives,” coupled with a scarcity of specific references thereafter to predators and prey, is just disingenuous…as is a claim later on that indigenous species in the Hawaiian Islands and those that were introduced more recently, such as the Indian mongoose (shown here robbing a bird’s nest), “work side by side.” The collectively produced cartoon illustrations (“Muti” is a studio) feature both individual portraits and ensemble views of each animal, generally smiling, in one of 14 relatively specific habitats, from the “Kenyan savanna in Africa” to a Washington state backyard (where honeybees are inaccurately housed in a paper-wasps’ nest).
An ill-conceived exercise in anthropomorphism. (index) (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-84780-972-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
A playful approach can’t compensate for all the loose screws in the informational payload.
A basic tour of the solar system and beyond, illustrated with a blend of stock photos and cartoons.
It’s hard to tell whether to blame the Dutch author or the uncredited translator, but the narrative is terminally afflicted with errors and ungainly phrasing, beginning with an observation that there “are several balls floating in space. We call them planets.” They continue past specious claims that lunar phases are caused when the Earth gets in between the moon and the sun, that the night side of Mercury is “burning hot,” that “all the stars and planets were shaped” only a million years after the Big Bang, and that Apollo 2 was the first moon landing (actually, that would be Apollo 11). Also, along with arbitrarily doodling cartoon stars or clouds amid real ones and adding the odd caribou or astronaut to photographed scenes, Mack implies in a caption that a photo of the Andromeda galaxy is the Milky Way and that a spacesuited figure with an “E. Aldrin” nametag is Neil Armstrong. (Collaged into the latter photograph is an Apollo 11 mission patch, which will mightily confuse readers who’ve read about the Apollo 2 landing on the previous, facing page.)
A playful approach can’t compensate for all the loose screws in the informational payload. (Nonfiction. 7-9)Pub Date: July 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-60537-381-2
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Clavis
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
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