Gus and his family have just moved to a new apartment, but Gus is not making the most of his new start. His mother hints that his lack of focus, scatterbrained behavior, and general attention problems are nothing new. Even on the way to school on the very first day, a howling animal distracts Gus. The animal turns out to be a cat and Gus slips a string around its neck and tries to catch it. The cat escapes, Gus is scratched and bleeding, and he is late for school. This story, though good-hearted, lacks a sense of time and place. Except for the teacher’s cursive writing on the board, readers have no idea of Gus’s age or grade. Many of the situations seem unrealistic. Would a young boy with two parents really walk to a new school in a new neighborhood all alone on the first day? Would a child approach a wild animal and be able to slip a string around its neck? Would a new student be able to find an empty office and keep a cat there for weeks, undetected, without a litter box? Unlikely situations, awkward writing (including strange similes and confusing shifts from third person to first person narration), and an undefined setting add up to an unsatisfying back-to-school story. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2002
ISBN: 0-8234-1714-X
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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After a tsunami devastates their habitat in the Salish Sea, a young orca and her brother embark on a remarkable adventure.
Vega’s matriarchal family expects her to become a hunter and wayfinder, with her younger brother, Deneb, protecting and supporting her. Invited to guide her family to their Gathering Place to hunt salmon, Vega’s underwater miscalculations endanger them all, and an embarrassed Vega questions whether she should be a wayfinder. When the baby sister she hoped would become her life companion is stillborn, a distraught Vega carries the baby away to a special resting place, shocking her grieving family. Dispatched to find his missing sister, Deneb locates Vega in the midst of a terrible tsunami. To escape the waters polluted by shattered boats, Vega leads Deneb into unfamiliar open sea. Alone and hungry, the young siblings encounter a spectacular giant whale and travel briefly with shark-hunting orcas. Trusting her instincts and gaining emotional strength from contemplating the vastness of the sky, Vega knows she must lead her brother home and help save her surviving family. In alternating first-person voices, Vega and Deneb tell their harrowing story, engaging young readers while educating them about the marine ecosystem. Realistic black-and-white illustrations enhance the maritime setting.
A dramatic, educational, authentic whale of a tale. (maps, wildlife facts, tribes of the Salish Sea watershed, environmental and geographical information, how to help orcas, author’s note, artist’s note, resources) (Animal fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-299592-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S ACTION & ADVENTURE FICTION | CHILDREN'S ANIMALS
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Cusick floats a slick, select gallery of nature’s spitters, nose-pickers, oozers, and slimers—most but not all nonhuman—atop nourishing globs of scientific information.
Title notwithstanding, the book is limited just to mucus and saliva. Following introductory looks at the major components of each, Cusick describes their often similar uses in nature—in swallowing or expelling foreign matter, fighting disease, predation and defense, camouflage, travel, communication (“Aren’t you glad humans use words to communicate?”), home construction, nutrition, and more. All of this is presented in easily digestible observations placed among, and often referring to, color photos of slime-covered goby fish, a giraffe with its tongue up its nose, various drooling animals, including a white infant, and like photogenic subjects. Two simple experiments cater to hands-on types, but any readers who take delight in sentences like “Some fungus beetles eat snail slime mucus” come away both stimulated and informed.
What better way to make natural history slide down easily? (index) (Nonfiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-63322-115-4
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Moondance/Quarto
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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