Full to bursting, juicy, never jammed.
Poems and eclectic tidbits about colors.
Although it maintains a superficially traditional approach of highlighting one hue per spread—sort of! sometimes!—this quirky colorfest is anything but standard. Free-spirited poems follow no particular structure: “Loudly, rowdy / daffodils yell hello. / Hot yellow” is the short, tongue-twisty first. A blue bear mourns spilled blueberries in patter that begs participation: “Oh, what did I do? / Blue-hoo, / Blue-hoo!” A verdant expanse exudes warmth and the “Green smell of a summer lawn. / Damp dawn long gone.” A second green poem features a hilarious dragon-and-ogre food chain; equally funny, a paintbrush-holding cat offers the esoteric terms “alizarin,” “cadmium,” and “quinacridone” to a dog in overalls, who responds, pithily, “Red.” Paschkis’ gouache-on-paper illustrations are elegant, playful, and expressively variable from page to page—each spread displays a new style and mood, including a wavy, all-encompassing ocean, a sad, slightly eerie minimalist forest, and a sated pig reclining on a hillside after a mouthwatering picnic. Across from the poems sit informational tidbits: etymology of “green” from “grene” and “growan”; the more yellow plants a chicken eats, the deeper yellow their eggs’ yolks are; where dye comes from. Hardcore science, including light refraction, will float over many readers’ heads, but there is no harm done. The assertion that the “Himba tribe of Namibia still has no word for orange” verges on exoticization and, unfortunately, is located on a spread with monkeys.
Full to bursting, juicy, never jammed. (author’s note) (Picture book/poetry. 3-7)Pub Date: July 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-12229-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Godwin Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
So rocket science can be fun.
What do you want to be when you grow up?
If they haven’t already thought about their futures (and they probably haven’t), toddlers and preschoolers might start planning after perusing this cheerful first guide to scientific careers. Plump-cheeked, wide-eyed tykes with various skin and hair colors introduce different professions, including zoologist, meteorologist, aerospace engineer, and environmental scientist, depicted with cues to tip readers off to what the jobs entail. The simple text presents the sometimes-long, tongue-twisting career names while helpfully defining them in comprehensible terms. For example, an environmental scientist “helps take care of our world,” and a zoologist is defined as someone who “studies how animals behave.” Scientists in general are identified as those who “study, learn, and solve problems.” Such basic language not only benefits youngsters, but also offers adults sharing the book easy vocabulary with which to expand on conversations with kids about the professions. The title’s ebullient appearance is helped along by the typography: The jobs’ names are set in all caps, printed in color and in a larger font than the surrounding text, and emphasized with exclamation points. Additionally, the buoyant watercolors feature clues to what scientists in these fields work with, such as celestial bodies for astronomers. The youngest listeners won’t necessarily get all of this, but the book works as a rudimentary introduction to STEM topics and a shoutout to scientific endeavors.
So rocket science can be fun. (Informational picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-62354-149-1
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
Only gnashnabs would cavil at this eximious display of lexicographical largesse.
More labial lollipops for logomanes and sesquipedalian proto-savants.
The creators of Big Words for Little Geniuses (2017) and Cuddly Critters for Little Geniuses (2018) follow up with another ABC of extravagant expressions. It begins with “ailurophile” (“How furry sweet!” Puns, yet), ends with “zoanthropy,” and in between highlights “bioluminescent,” growls at a grouchy “gnashnab,” and collects a “knickknackatory” of like locutions. A list of 14 additional words is appended in a second, partial alphabet. Each entry comes with a phonetic version, a one- or two-sentence verbal definition, and, from Pan, a visual one with a big letter and very simple, broadly brushed figures. Lending an ear to aural pleasures, the authors borrow from German to include “fünfundfünfzig” in the main list and add a separate list of a dozen more words at the end likewise deemed sheer fun to say. Will any of these rare, generally polysyllabic leviathans find their way into idiolects or casual conversations? Unlikely, alas—but sounding them out and realizing that even the silliest have at least putative meanings sheds liminal light on language’s glittering word hoards.
Only gnashnabs would cavil at this eximious display of lexicographical largesse. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-53445-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
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