An insider’s view of exciting sites and finds, with prehistoric portraits aplenty to match.
Landmark discoveries in paleontology, from multibillion-year-old stromatolites to a woolly mammoth tooth no more ancient than the Egyptian pyramids.
After a general timeline and a rundown of the “big five” extinction events, paleontologist Moore covers the story of prehistoric life in roughly chronological single topic spreads. She focuses mainly on lesser known tales of discovery, such as the Precambrian fossils found by 19th-century schoolchildren in England’s Charnwood Forest, and also highlights spectacular finds at unusually rich sites like Angeac-Charente in France, where 73,000 specimens have been recovered, and Oregon’s Turtle Cove Assemblage. Thorns tucks an occasional light- or dark-skinned human figure in for scale but fills up most pages with an abundance of full-body animal portraits—not always to relative scale but rendered in lifelike poses and with reasonable, usually brightly colored naturalism. Readers curious about the deep history of microbes, plants, and fungi will have to look elsewhere, and our hominin story is limited to three skimpy spreads. Still, along with extinct stars like Titanoboa and Megalodon, special features such as a lineup comparing the very different original and modern concepts of what certain dinosaurs looked like and a gallery of wildly shaped and hued ceratopsian heads will please both fledgling and confirmed dinophiles. And the named and depicted paleontologists here include nearly as many women as men. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An insider’s view of exciting sites and finds, with prehistoric portraits aplenty to match. (index) (Informational picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-68449-254-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Neon Squid/Macmillan
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
Fun, enlightening, and gross in all the best ways.
Get ready to learn the scoop on poop. (And urine, too!)
Scatological-minded readers—and really, who isn’t?—will be thrilled to get their hands on this smattering of waste-based trivia. Each page is dedicated to a new topic sure to hit that special place where humor, disgust, and a love of unusual facts intersect. For example, did you know that urine has been used as a whitening agent for centuries? From laundry in medieval times to teeth cleaning in ancient Rome, pee has been No. 1 when it comes to making whites whiter. Or perhaps readers will be interested to learn that rabbits consume their feces to take advantage of the missed nutrients the first time around and that panda babies eat their parents’ droppings to better develop healthy gut bacteria—two facts caregivers can throw back at readers if they complain about leftovers! Each page also includes a disgustingly funny full-color illustration or two. A brief list of further reading offers more sources to mine for information, and a glossary (sans pronunciation guide) is there to help forgetful readers with a smattering of terms, from ammonia to vitamins. Some caregivers may turn up their noses at the subject, but consider this: If a young reader is going to be obsessed with poop humor, they might as well learn something.
Fun, enlightening, and gross in all the best ways. (index) (Nonfiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0413-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
Gives a Kennedy often lost in his older brother’s dazzle a glow of his own.
A reverent tribute to Robert F. Kennedy’s spirit and legacy.
The muted hues and grim, downcast faces in Fazlalizadeh’s atmospheric graphite art set a valedictory tone, but Wiles writes to connect living readers with Kennedy’s character and dedication to public service—framing her biographical overview as a tale told to a brown-skinned child by a lighter-skinned grandparent who ends with a present-tense challenge: “We know we have work to do.” Though the author humanizes her subject by informing readers that Kennedy loved “ice cream and big dogs. Just like you do,” offering anecdotes from his early years in a large and competitive family, and discussing his work to help his older—and more well-known—brother John be elected president, ensuing passages focus less on what he did than on his words as attorney general in support of voting and other civil rights along with his opposition to the war in Vietnam and statements of principle during his presidential candidacy (most cogently: “We can do better than this”). Wiles continues to address readers directly in her afterword, urging them to learn more about, and be inspired by, what he stood for and providing leads to recommended print and online sources. Faces and hands in group scenes are depicted in a range of skin tones. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Gives a Kennedy often lost in his older brother’s dazzle a glow of his own. (Picture-book biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-545-17123-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
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