Though the poems of Bruce Lansky and Jack Prelutsky remain the gold standard in terms of school poems, these do present some...
Winters follows up her debut poetry book (Did You See What I Saw?, 1996) with another collection of poems about school.
The 35 poems run the gamut from the first day of school to the first day of summer and are written from all sorts of perspectives, including those of a school, a bus, the new kid, and an earthworm. (That last poem may have readers scratching their heads as to how it fits, but the illustration of earthworms tunneling below a farmer on a tractor is quite fabulous.) Kids will find lots that is familiar here: a fire drill, the awkward thrill of spotting a teacher outside of school, a friend moving away, permission slips, academic subjects, a snow day, the 100th day of school, tests, and lice, among others (though absent are any poems about school lunches). The forms of the poems also vary. Some are free verse; others rhyme, though the rhymes and rhythm are occasionally weak (“guess” with “tests”). Barton’s digital illustrations have a watercolor look, with soft edges and colors. She focuses largely on the people, her vignettes filled with diverse students and teachers engaged with each other.
Though the poems of Bruce Lansky and Jack Prelutsky remain the gold standard in terms of school poems, these do present some different topics and viewpoints. (Picture book/poetry. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-53898-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit.
The bubble-helmeted feline explains what rockets do and the role they have played in sending people (and animals) into space.
Addressing a somewhat younger audience than in previous outings (Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, 2013, etc.), Astro Cat dispenses with all but a light shower of “factoroids” to describe how rockets work. A highly selective “History of Space Travel” follows—beginning with a crew of fruit flies sent aloft in 1947, later the dog Laika (her dismal fate left unmentioned), and the human Yuri Gagarin. Then it’s on to Apollo 11 in 1969; the space shuttles Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger (the fates of the latter two likewise elided); the promise of NASA’s next-gen Orion and the Space Launch System; and finally vague closing references to other rockets in the works for local tourism and, eventually, interstellar travel. In the illustrations the spacesuited professor, joined by a mouse and cat in similar dress, do little except float in space and point at things. Still, the art has a stylish retro look, and portraits of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford diversify an otherwise all-white, all-male astronaut corps posing heroically or riding blocky, geometric spacecraft across starry reaches.
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-911171-55-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A broad, if hardly more than skin-deep, introduction to the topic.
Four double-foldout spreads literally extend this first gander at our body’s insides and outsides—to jumbo, if not quite life, size.
Labels, basic facts, and one-sentence comments surround full-length cartoon images of the skeleton, musculature, and major sections of the body on the foldouts. Selected parts from the brain on down to blood cells are covered on the leaves in between. Lacey dishes out explanations of major body systems and processes in resolutely nontechnical language: “When you eat, food goes on a long twisty journey, zigzagging through tubes and turning into a soupy mush for your body to use.” It’s lightly spiced with observations that, for instance, the “gluteus maximus” is the largest muscle or the spine is made up of “vertebrae.” So light is the once-over, however, that the lymphatic, renal, and most of the endocrine systems escape notice (kidneys, where are you?). Moreover, though printed on durable card stock, the foldouts make for unwieldy handling, and on some pages, images are so scattered that successive stages of various processes require numbering. Still, Web links on the publisher’s page will presumably help to cover the gaps (unavailable for review). An overview of human development from fertilization to adulthood precedes a closing flurry of height extremes and other “Amazing body facts” that provide proper closure for this elementary survey.
A broad, if hardly more than skin-deep, introduction to the topic. (Nonfiction. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7945-3596-4
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Usborne
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
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