An epic, energetic flight into the dimmer reaches of our local astronomical neighborhood.
The creators of If You Had Your Birthday Party on the Moon (2019) chronicle a far more venturesome outing.
Bursting up from Earth, wrapped in gold foil (real) and a huge grin (fictive), the New Horizons probe sets out for distant Pluto to answer questions ranging from “What color [is] its sky?” to “[Are] there gross creepy-crawly things?” Along her weary way, she learns that Pluto gets downgraded to a dwarf planet (“Well, this stung a bit”), but after getting a gravity assist from “ginormous” Jupiter and falling into a long, long semisleep, the probe at last wakes up, focuses her cameras, and “on July 14, 2015, Pluto suddenly became a place.” A place, Lapin notes in her generous payload of scientific observations and findings, with not one but five moons, a huge heart-shaped glacier of frozen nitrogen, and just maybe an un-frozen subsurface ocean suitable for harboring life. But Pluto is only the beginning for the plucky probe, as she has continued on her multibillion-mile course past the strangely shaped Kuiper belt object Arrokoth (sky in the Powhatan tongue) in 2019 and is still barreling along her astronomical track to worlds beyond. (Stay tuned for further developments.) Small inset photos and graphics add helpful views of orbits, several more dwarf planets, and other details. With just one exception, all the Earthbound scientists following the expedition present White. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 75% of actual size.)
An epic, energetic flight into the dimmer reaches of our local astronomical neighborhood. (timeline, glossary, bibliography, websites) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4549-3755-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf