Bland, hypercautious, and sloppy.
A set of rhymed riddles sends young Mason pelting through a natural history museum in search of both solutions and the best place for his birthday sleepover.
Joined by friends Will and Zoe at the museum’s entrance, Mason starts out with a “Dino Fossil Dig” in the Discovery Room’s sandbox. Equipped with headlamps and a fold-out map, the kids then dash down darkened halls (museum employee Jesse in tow) to marvel at models of Saturn, a T. Rex, and a dodo; wild-animal exhibits; live butterflies; and other wonders. After winding up in the party room for cake, Mason and his pals bed down beneath a huge blue whale suspended from the ceiling. As the explorers somehow never get to the Hall of Human Origins or the ethnographic exhibits marked on the endpaper floor plans, this has its limits as a model itinerary for a visit to a real science museum, where evolutionary science is covered and, perhaps, some humans are uncovered. More problematically, the illustrations mislead or include actual errors: “Just look at the diamonds sparkle!” Zoe enthuses, gazing at a jumble of large, elongated blue crystals. Elsewhere, a set of “extinct predators” includes two herbivores, a group labeled “African Elephant” seems to include at least two of the Asian subspecies, and all of the visible exhibits in the Hall of Dinosaurs are fleshed-out models rather than skeletons. A substantial list of natural history and other types of museums with sleepover programs at the end offers leads to more authentic experiences. Mason and Zoe present white; Will presents black; and Jesse presents Asian.
Bland, hypercautious, and sloppy. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-7140-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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