Go adventuring with a better guide.
Find something to do in every state in the U.S.A.!
This guide highlights a location of interest within each of the states, therefore excluding Washington, D.C., and the territories. Trivia about each location is scattered across crisply rendered landscapes that background each state’s double-page spread while diminutive, diverse characters populate the scenes. Befitting the title, one “adventure” is presented per state, such as shrimping in Louisiana’s bayous, snowshoeing in Connecticut, or celebrating the Fourth of July in Boston. While some are stereotypical gimmes (surfing in California), others have the virtue of novelty, at least for this audience, such as viewing the sandhill crane migration in Nebraska. Within this thematic unity, some details go astray, and readers may find themselves searching in vain for animals mentioned. The trivia is plentiful but may be misleading, vague, or incorrect. Information about the Native American peoples of the area is often included, but its brevity—especially regarding sacred locations—means readers are floundering without sufficient context. The same is true for many of the facts that relate directly to expansion and colonialism, such as the unexplained near extinction of bison. Describing the genealogical oral history of South Carolina’s Gullah community as “spin[ning] tales” is equally brusque and offensive. The book tries to do a lot, but it is more style than substance, which may leave readers bored, confused, slightly annoyed—or all three. (This book was reviewed digitally with 12.2-by-20.2-inch double-page spreads viewed at 80% of actual size.)
Go adventuring with a better guide. (tips on local adventuring, index) (Nonfiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7112-5445-9
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Challenges galore for young eco-crusaders, presented in an inventive format.
A gallery of civilization-threatening “modern monsters,” from Smogosaurus and the forest-chewing Logre to Acid Rain Spirits and Nuclear Jinns.
These menaces are modeled on or at least inspired by creatures from pop culture or world folklore—Trash Kong, for instance, is joined by the Noisybird, loosely related to the similarly nine-headed Jiu Tou Niao of Chinese tradition, and the E-Waste Golem. Each one steps up in turn to boast of its destructive habits and potential and comes with an inset “Monster Card” featuring arrays of icons (interpreted on a key that can be folded out for ready reference) indicating activities that will promote, or hinder, further damage to our planet. The monsters are all created or (more commonly) abetted by human agency, and though many acknowledge anxiously that efforts are being made to check their depredations, Rohde urgently makes the case at beginning and end that there is still plenty of work to be done. The monsters themselves, which are largely rendered as diaphanous or semi-abstract shapes in various transparent hues with stylized, geometric faces, come across as more pretty than dangerous looking, and the fold-out world “Monster Map” at the end conveys a misleading impression that they are mostly localized threats rather than ubiquitous ones. Still, even younger readers will understand that each poses a real danger.
Challenges galore for young eco-crusaders, presented in an inventive format. (glossary, source list, index) (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-912920-22-8
Page Count: 60
Publisher: What on Earth!
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Bland and sanitized.
Nineteen Romans, from an emperor to a gladiator, introduce themselves in this cross-sectional view of an ancient society.
In Fatimaharan’s cartoon portraits, even the enslaved speakers smile, and some, like the gladiator and legionary, are downright gleeful. A startling exception is a formerly enslaved seamstress who now laments that she must work with rough wool and linen rather than fine fabrics. Along with portraying six women, including a professional scribe and an import/export merchant, the artist employs a diverse palette for skin tones. However, since everyone here except the emperor Trajan is fictional, there’s no reason to conclude that either the racial or gender mix is historically accurate. Long gives each member of the gallery a name and a few personal details, but their tonally similar first-person descriptions of their lives and work are so generic that readers will have a hard time telling them apart or catching any sense of what daily life in those days might have actually been like. A closing section of general background, just as superficial, features a timeline that misleadingly bills the fall of Rome in the West as “the end of the empire,” profiles of pagan deities but no mention of those of other major religions, and Latin translations of common phrases like “What time is it?” with no pronunciation guidance.
Bland and sanitized. (map, glossary, list of sites and museums, index) (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: June 29, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-78312-605-7
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Welbeck Children's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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