by John Farndon ; illustrated by Tim Hutchinson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2017
An attractive, detailed exploration for an uncertain audience.
The human body gets a visually appealing tour.
Each section of this colorful exploration of human anatomy and physiology begins with a simple question: “How do you move?” and “How do muscles work?” are typical. Detailed, numbered steps are arranged around the large pages, often connected by fine, blue directional lines. Each double-page spread—four augmented with double gatefolds—describes a body system, organ, or process, all of them represented as factory scenes with myriad little workers of various races scampering around fixing, building, or operating fancifully depicted juvenile bodies. The pages are very busy and amusing to pore over. The narrative tends toward complexity, with a challenging vocabulary and granular level of detail. For example, the lateral genticulate nucleus and superior colliculus are both named and explained. Yet on another page urine is described as “pee.” Although sometimes simplistic, the narrative is nearly always accurate, with the exception of one statement that there are valves at the bottom of the heart’s ventricles (although they are depicted correctly in an illustration and described correctly in a different paragraph on the same page). Like David Macaulay’s The Way We Work (2008), this body tour has illustrations that will charm a younger audience than would enjoy the complexity of the written information. For that younger group, Tanya Lloyd Kyi and Ross Kinnaird’s 50 Body Questions (2014) offers a more balanced presentation.
An attractive, detailed exploration for an uncertain audience. (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77085-981-4
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
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by Kathleen Krull & illustrated by Boris Kulikov ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2006
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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by Kathleen Krull & illustrated by Boris Kulikov
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by Kathleen Krull & Virginia Loh-Hagan ; illustrated by Aura Lewis
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by Kathleen Krull ; illustrated by Annie Bowler
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by Kathleen Krull & Paul Brewer ; illustrated by Boris Kulikov
by Amy Stewart ; illustrated by Briony Morrow-Cribbs ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 8, 2017
Entomophobes will find all of this horrifyingly informative.
This junior edition of Stewart’s lurid 2011 portrait gallery of the same name (though much less gleeful subtitle) loses none of its capacity for leaving readers squicked-out.
The author drops a few entries, notably the one on insect sexual practices, and rearranges toned-down versions of the rest into roughly topical sections. Beginning with the same cogent observation—“We are seriously outnumbered”—she follows general practice in thrillers of this ilk by defining “bug” broadly enough to include all-too-detailed descriptions of the life cycles and revolting or deadly effects of scorpions and spiders, ticks, lice, and, in a chapter evocatively titled “The Enemy Within,” such internal guests as guinea worms and tapeworms. Mosquitoes, bedbugs, the ubiquitous “Filth Fly,” and like usual suspects mingle with more-exotic threats, from the tongue-eating louse and a “yak-killer hornet” (just imagine) to the aggressive screw-worm fly that, in one cited case, flew up a man’s nose and laid hundreds of eggs…that…hatched. Morrow-Cribbs’ close-up full-color drawings don’t offer the visceral thrills of the photos in, for instance, Rebecca L. Johnson’s Zombie Makers (2012) but are accurate and finely detailed enough to please even the fussiest young entomologists.
Entomophobes will find all of this horrifyingly informative. (index, glossary, resource lists) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61620-755-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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