In this sketchy digest of his 2005 account for adults, Heuer, a Canadian Park Warden, retraces the trek he and his wife made to protest oil developers’ plans to drill on calving grounds used by caribou each year in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Skipping over most of the day-to-day details, such as how they fed themselves for five months, he recounts encounters with wolves, bears, wild storms and, worst of all, seasonal clouds of mosquitoes and blowflies so aggressive that even the tough, normally imperturbable caribou stampeded in panic. Along with—or perhaps because of—physical privation, he and his wife also experienced mysterious sounds and déjà vu visions. Aside from plenty of big color photos, there isn’t much information here about caribou—but the hazards of their seasonal migration come through clearly, as does the author’s voice and agenda. (index, map, resource list) (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: May 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8027-9565-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2007
Remarking that ``nothing about the weather is very simple,'' Simon goes on to describe how the sun, atmosphere, earth's rotation, ground cover, altitude, pollution, and other factors influence it; briefly, he also tells how weather balloons gather information. Even for this outstanding author, it's a tough, complex topic, and he's not entirely successful in simplifying it; moreover, the import of the striking uncaptioned color photos here isn't always clear. One passage—``Cumulus clouds sometimes build up into towering masses called cumulus congestus, or swelling cumulus, which may turn into cumulonimbus clouds''—is superimposed on a blue-gray, cloud-covered landscape. But which kind of clouds are these? Another photo, in blue-black and white, shows what might be precipitation in the upper atmosphere, or rain falling on a darkened landscape, or...? Generally competent and certainly attractive, but not Simon's best. (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-688-10546-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1993
Bishop’s spectacular photographs of the tiny red-eyed tree frog defeat an incidental text from Cowley (Singing Down the Rain, 1997, etc.). The frog, only two inches long, is enormous in this title; it appears along with other nocturnal residents of the rain forests of Central America, including the iguana, ant, katydid, caterpillar, and moth. In a final section, Cowley explains how small the frog is and aspects of its life cycle. The main text, however, is an afterthought to dramatic events in the photos, e.g., “But the red-eyed tree frog has been asleep all day. It wakes up hungry. What will it eat? Here is an iguana. Frogs do not eat iguanas.” Accompanying an astonishing photograph of the tree frog leaping away from a boa snake are three lines (“The snake flicks its tongue. It tastes frog in the air. Look out, frog!”) that neither advance nor complement the action. The layout employs pale and deep green pages and typeface, and large jewel-like photographs in which green and red dominate. The combination of such visually sophisticated pages and simplistic captions make this a top-heavy, unsatisfying title. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-87175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
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