An astonishing way to lay the groundwork for such works for older readers as Steve Sheinkin’s Bomb (2012), this is a...
A picture book takes on the creation of the atomic bomb.
“In the beginning,” the story opens, with overtones of Genesis, and it does, indeed, become a story of creation and elemental powers of the universe. The first two pages suggest a Roxaboxen-style celebration of a desert playscape, but then the secret project—the Manhattan Project—unfolds. The local boys’ school is closed, scientists arrive at a place that doesn’t even really exist yet, and shadowy figures get to work creating a “Gadget” of enormous power. Ingeniously, Jeanette Winter’s illustrations balance the dark, cloaked secrecy of Los Alamos, signified by silhouetted figures viewed through windows, with the bright beauty of the outer world—the mesas, cacti, coyotes, prairie dogs, and desert mountains; Hopi artists carving dolls out of wood “as they have done for centuries”; and Georgia O’Keefe painting a gorgeous desert scene. Jonah Winter’s text is eloquent, and his mother’s digital illustrations evoke a beautiful landscape in danger if the scientists’ contraption works. When the bomb explodes, the monstrous mushroom cloud grows over four pages, concluding with a pitch-black double-page spread and no further text, which will leave young readers eager to know more. An informative author’s note will help adults provide the historical context.
An astonishing way to lay the groundwork for such works for older readers as Steve Sheinkin’s Bomb (2012), this is a beautifully told introduction to a difficult subject. (Informational picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6913-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
PROFILES
The luster dims a bit for the author and illustrator of Night Workers (2000) and their other wonderfully soothing picture books, as they go more for poetry than science in trying to give younger children a sense of our planet's antiquity. While a dark-eyed boy picks up a rock on a beach, contemplates it quietly, then takes it home to place alongside his collection of sea glass, flashback scenes track his prize from its volcanic origins, as it "cooled in the shade of a thousand years," lay on a grassy highland while dinosaurs came and went, sheltered cave-dwellers, partly blocked an ancient city street, was washed down to the sea, and finally came to be "thrust" in some unexplained manner, "onto the beach." The semi-impressionistic paintings are tranquil as ever, even when that mood isn't really appropriate, and the rock, depicted as an indistinct, darkly orange blob, seems to move under its own power into and out of the calm ocean. Share this with a child at bed or rest time, but other rocks make less arbitrary, and more clearly articulated, journeys in such books as Meredith Hooper's Pebble in My Pocket (1996). (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: April 6, 2001
ISBN: 0-374-32566-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Frances Foster/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2001
An introduction to the ochre sea star, a Pacific coast variety. Halfmann appropriately focuses on sea stars’ more amazing adaptations—sticky tube feet, a stomach that can be extruded from its body and the ability to regenerate its rays. Children follow along as one sea star uses the night’s high tide to reach the shore, where the mussel beds and her next meal lie. Along the way, she uses her tube feet to right herself after a wave flips her, works to pry apart some mussels, eats her fill and narrowly escapes a hungry seagull. Unfortunately, the author misses some great opportunities to introduce vocabulary. Backmatter includes a diagram of a sea star, resources for finding out more, a four-word glossary and two pages of extensive additional information about sea stars. Paley’s beautiful artwork consists of collages of hand-painted papers of watercolor blends and textures. While the colors and textures are truly evocative of the ocean setting, the illustrations fall a bit short in terms of scientific detail. The text mentions (without naming) the madreporite, the opening in the top of the starfish that allows it to take in water and power its tube feet, but the light-colored, off-center circle that marks this spot is missing in the illustration. This combines with the lack of scientific vocabulary to keep this from being a solid resource, but it could serve to spark further interest. (Informational picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 24, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9073-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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