A cozy, kid-friendly approach to collaborative, creative, and innovative problem-solving.
Using imagination and science, a cat, a cloud, and their friends work together to make a special gift in this debut illustrated children’s book.
Louey, a ginger cat with a white belly, is a guardian of his close friend Chloe, a soft white cloud. In turn, Chloe comes up with enjoyable adventures for the pals in the Land of Berry Pies. Following the sound of beautiful music one day, they find their friend Rainbow Oak playing a wondrous flute, a gift from Willow to welcome spring. Oak wants to reciprocate with an equally remarkable present to greet summer, and he has a great concept—flying, dancing daisies. With this big idea in mind, Louey and Chloe get to work, enlisting rabbit pals Pom and Pima and spirit bears Ulima and Raymond. The bears offer six helper-baskets to organize the process: Imagine (gather ideas), Illustrate (depict ideas), Illuminate (focus on the gift’s most important features), Invite (bring in Code Keeper artisans to create the present), Integrate (implement the project), and Inspire (collect notions for future endeavors). With the aid of DataBrain Abacus Tewukule, they assemble dragonfly and daisy DNA and grow the flowers, with delightful results. In her book, Ish at first seems to offer a tale as fluffy as Louey and Chloe. Whimsy is maintained throughout, even as the plot takes an unexpected turn into a primer on design thinking and DNA. The author takes her time with making the complicated subject as clear (and fun) as possible, though young readers may still have trouble comprehending the material. Her monochrome images have swooshing, scribbly line work that captures the story’s playful side; children with the paperback edition can color in the illustrations.
A cozy, kid-friendly approach to collaborative, creative, and innovative problem-solving.Pub Date: July 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77-725373-8
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Library and Archives Canada, Canadian ISBN Service
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
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