The overarching concept, introducing children to science subjects using humor, is solid; too bad the verse doesn’t rise to...
Whimsical rhymes describe a range of science topics for a younger audience.
Magnetism, geology, and the life cycle of a flea are just a few of the topics explored in this bright, energetic picture book. Appealing illustrations show a diverse array of characters gardening, building, sensing, and experimenting, with forays into the solar system and the animal kingdom as well. Each full-page spread presents a poem, and it is here that the book begins to fall down. The poems vary in structure: Some are rhyming couplets, some alternate rhymed and unrhymed lines, a few utilize repetition. However, only some of the stanzas effectively utilize meter, so readers are often required to wrench syllables around in order to get them to scan, marring the reading experience whether it’s to oneself or to an audience. The wacky poem about chemistry, for example, concludes “Hurray for the Captain! / The King of Chemistry! / His all-purpose cleaner / is also earth friend-ly!” Some of the scenarios are fun, others are more meditative, and the titular piece seems intended to encourage girls in STEM, but the educational possibilities are overall stymied by the versification.
The overarching concept, introducing children to science subjects using humor, is solid; too bad the verse doesn’t rise to the occasion. (Picture book/poetry. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55455-396-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Fitzhenry & Whiteside
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
An informative and accessible child’s-eye view of STEM careers.
Aspiring young scientists, take heed!
Traveling on a ship to the North Pole would seem an adventure in itself, but the young, unnamed narrator, whose mother heads up a team of marine biologists, also gets to meet eight other scientists involved in other specialties. On almost every page of this early reader, we encounter someone engaged in different fieldwork: a hydrologist, a microbiologist, a geologist, a seismologist, a climate scientist, a meteorologist, a zoologist, and an astronomer. As the narrator thinks about careers in science, more specialty roles—botanist, epidemiologist, and physicist—are added to the list. The work of these scientists is clearly and simply explained. (Appended is a short list with descriptions of 10 specialties.) The unfussy illustrations are washed in glowing colors, with many shades of blue; when snow forms the background, the scientists’ bright jackets pop. The ship itself is a fire-engine red. Beginners might need help reading or pronouncing some of the researchers’ special fields, but overall this is an engaging introduction to a wide and important area of work. The scientists include men and women and are racially diverse. The narrator and Mom are light-skinned; the child uses crutches.
An informative and accessible child’s-eye view of STEM careers. (Early reader/nonfiction. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780062989659
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
