Poor Earth. It’s stuck with us.
This picture book challenges children to imagine the Earth as it exists now in a future without humans.
Coy opens his provocative thought experiment by reminding readers, “People need water to live. / We need air to breathe. / We need plants to survive. / But do they need us?” Without humans, infrastructure would begin to break down. “Lightning strikes would cause fires that would burn uncontrolled.” The air and water would become cleaner. Between erosion and unchecked nature, humanity would eventually become a dim planetary memory. Capannelli’s accompanying watercolors depict graffiti-tagged overpasses hung about with blossoming vines, a tree sprouting through a factory’s chimney, the skeletal frames of suburban homes ablaze, the rubble of a long-vacant classroom. Birds and animals roam these places freely. Coy closes by declaring that air, plants, and water don’t “need us,” but we “absolutely” need air, plants, and water. “And because we do, / we must take care, / in all the ways we can, / so we’re here on Earth together / now / and in the future." Coy’s persuasive strategy is weak. Earth without humans is so clearly better off it’s hard to imagine children will be anything but profoundly discouraged by this book. A closing note headed “What Can We Do?” encourages readers broadly to reduce consumption and embrace the outdoors but ultimately fails to empower.
Poor Earth. It’s stuck with us. (author’s note, bibliography) (Picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5415-2357-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Millbrook/Lerner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.
This book is buzzing with trivia.
Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A quick flight but a blast from first to last.
A charged-up roundup of astro-facts.
Having previously explored everything awesome about both dinosaurs (2019) and sharks (2020), Lowery now heads out along a well-traveled route, taking readers from the Big Bang through a planet-by-planet tour of the solar system and then through a selection of space-exploration highlights. The survey isn’t unique, but Lowery does pour on the gosh-wow by filling each hand-lettered, poster-style spread with emphatic colors and graphics. He also goes for the awesome in his selection of facts—so that readers get nothing about Newton’s laws of motion, for instance, but will come away knowing that just 65 years separate the Wright brothers’ flight and the first moon landing. They’ll also learn that space is silent but smells like burned steak (according to astronaut Chris Hadfield), that thanks to microgravity no one snores on the International Space Station, and that Buzz Aldrin was the first man on the moon…to use the bathroom. And, along with a set of forgettable space jokes (OK, one: “Why did the carnivore eat the shooting star?” “Because it was meteor”), the backmatter features drawing instructions for budding space artists and a short but choice reading list. Nods to Katherine Johnson and NASA’s other African American “computers” as well as astronomer Vera Rubin give women a solid presence in the otherwise male and largely White cast of humans. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A quick flight but a blast from first to last. (Informational picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-35974-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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