Art teacher Arnold, together with her artist husband, embarked on a project to support the diminishing number of Asian elephants. Traveling to Thailand, India and Cambodia, they trained 30 elephants to paint and supplied their keepers with materials and ideas to keep the project in place. Arnold recounts, in alternating text and photographs, the basics of teaching art to children and elephants, exploring similarities and differences between the two groups. Students use their hands while others work with their trunks; some like peanut butter and jelly, while others eat grass. But in art class both can express their talent by painting with dots, bright colors and strokes in their own style. Remarkably, the elephant paintings parallel the artwork of the children quite well, including one bouquet that is amazingly realistic. Additionally, Arnold intersperses some interesting facts about the elephant’s natural behavior. Beautiful photography displaying children, elephants and artwork set in a well-designed layout of large multi-colored text, coupled with green boxes filled with facts in a bold black font, add to the book’s unique subject matter and appeal. (Nonfiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-689-86985-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Anne Schwartz/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2005
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Having put together a band with renowned cousin Duck Ellington and singer “Bee” Holiday, Rooster’s chances sure look...
Winning actually isn’t everything, as jazz-happy Rooster learns when he goes up against the legendary likes of Mules Davis and Ella Finchgerald at the barnyard talent show.
Having put together a band with renowned cousin Duck Ellington and singer “Bee” Holiday, Rooster’s chances sure look good—particularly after his “ ‘Hen from Ipanema’ [makes] / the barnyard chickies swoon.”—but in the end the competition is just too stiff. No matter: A compliment from cool Mules and the conviction that he still has the world’s best band soon puts the strut back in his stride. Alexander’s versifying isn’t always in tune (“So, he went to see his cousin, / a pianist of great fame…”), and despite his moniker Rooster plays an electric bass in Bower’s canted country scenes. Children are unlikely to get most of the jokes liberally sprinkled through the text, of course, so the adults sharing it with them should be ready to consult the backmatter, which consists of closing notes on jazz’s instruments, history and best-known musicians.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58536-688-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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