A low-key consciousness raiser, more about the fun (and value) of measuring than the importance of accurate results.
An invitation to compare heights, lengths, weights, temperatures, and other relative measures in this German import.
Focusing largely on observations of the natural world, a mix of questions and facts (“Try counting your teeth. How many are there?…Did you know that [adult] humans have the same number of teeth as a cow?”) spurs reflection as well as chuckles. The ruminative tone of the narrative is echoed in the China-born illustrator’s cleanly drawn, serigraphic-style illustrations, which feature serene-looking animals, twisting lines in a 5,000-year-old pine or the tentacles of a colossal squid, and light- or dark-skinned adults and children, all posed in conjunction on pale-hued, plain backgrounds. Though the language is sometimes confusingly imprecise (it is unclear what is being measured in a claim that an albatross’s wingspan is “2.5 times their average height” or a small dinosaur’s “length” compared to a supposedly larger mountain goat that is visibly shorter in the picture), the actual units of measure are plainly intended as averages rather than exact figures. Those units (mostly English) are accurate enough in general and sometimes amusingly unconventional to boot: A goliath beetle larva, for instance “weighs more than a bar of chocolate,” and a red deer’s time in the 100-meter dash easily outpaces Usain Bolt’s. A final observation that there are many “surprising things big and small” in the world makes a properly open-ended concluding promise.
A low-key consciousness raiser, more about the fun (and value) of measuring than the importance of accurate results. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-3-89955-812-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little Gestalten
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
Tempting fare for young dino-devotees.
A gallery of prehistoric marine reptiles, their prey, and their predators.
Aiming for newly independent readers, Thomson describes in short sentences and simple language how plesiosaurs—an order that included both long- and short-necked varieties—hunted, got about with their flippers (“Maybe it paddled like a duck. Maybe it glided like a sea turtle”), gave birth to live young, and succumbed at last to an extinction event 65 million years ago. She provides broader context with comments about general features common to land and marine reptiles alike and closes with summary facts about other marine reptiles of both the past and present. Details both tantalize (the “smooth stones” in a plesiosaur’s stomach “may have helped to crush food”) and enlighten through concrete example: “Some plesiosaurs were only a bit longer than a broomstick. Some could’ve stretched halfway across a basketball court.” Throughout, Thomson carefully makes sure to emphasize that there is much we still do not know. Plant juices up the presentation with dramatic (labeled) portraits of thrillingly toothy predators leaving trails of blood in the water as they eat and are eaten.
Tempting fare for young dino-devotees. (print, video, and web resource lists) (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: July 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-58089-542-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
There’s not much beyond the razzle-dazzle, but it’s got that in spades.
Intense hues light up a prehistoric parade.
It’s really all about the colors. The endpapers are twinned head-shot galleries captioned, in the front, with scientific names (“Tyrannosaurus rex”) and pronunciations and, in the rear, translations of same (“Tyrant Lizard King”). In between, Paul marches 18 labeled dinos—mostly one type per page or spread, all flat, white-eyed silhouettes posed (with occasional exceptions) facing the same way against inconspicuously stylized background. The text runs toward the trite: “Some dinosaurs were fast… / and other dinosaurs were slow.” But inspired by the fact that we know very little about how dinosaurs were decorated (according to a brief author’s note), Paul makes each page turn a visual flash. Going for saturated hues and vivid contrasts rather than complex patterns, he sets red-orange spikes like flames along the back of a mottled aquamarine Kentrosaurus, places a small purple-blue Compsognathus beneath a towering Supersaurus that glows like a blown ember, pairs a Giganotosaurus’ toothy head and crest in similarly lambent shades to a spotted green body, and outfits the rest of his cast in like finery. “Today you can see their bones at the museum,” he abruptly, inadequately, and simplistically concludes.
There’s not much beyond the razzle-dazzle, but it’s got that in spades. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6698-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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