Striking photographs dominate in this odd paean to selected fruits and vegetables. The seemingly random assortment (apples, oranges, potatoes, tomatoes, grapes, bananas, mushrooms, corn and pomegranates) is just the first aspect of this undeniably attractive volume that may perplex young readers. A smattering of facts and stories about each food accompanies formal portraits posed against scenic backgrounds and smaller vignettes of trees, plants and prepared food items. The photos are vintage Robbins: colorful, sensuous, intriguing. There’s little rhyme or reason discernible in the text, however, as it skips through time and across continents, alternately imparting knowledge and offering sly asides. For example, the author points out that “China grows almost half the apples in the world today,” refers to various Greek myths in which they are featured and speculates on whether they were actually the forbidden fruit of the Bible. Ultimately both approach and content seem best suited to an adult audience (preferably dedicated foodies) who will be sufficiently familiar with mythology, history and literature to catch and appreciate the many allusions. (Nonfiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: March 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59643-343-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2009
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
The author of Cod’s Tale (2001) again demonstrates a dab hand at recasting his adult work for a younger audience. Here the topic is salt, “the only rock eaten by human beings,” and, as he engrossingly demonstrates, “the object of wars and revolutions” throughout recorded history and before. Between his opening disquisition on its chemical composition and a closing timeline, he explores salt’s sources and methods of extraction, its worldwide economic influences from prehistoric domestication of animals to Gandhi’s Salt March, its many uses as a preservative and industrial product, its culinary and even, as the source for words like “salary” and “salad,” its linguistic history. Along with lucid maps and diagrams, Schindler supplies detailed, sometimes fanciful scenes to go along, finishing with a view of young folk chowing down on orders of French fries as ghostly figures from history look on. Some of Kurlansky’s claims are exaggerated (the Erie and other canals were built to transport more than just salt, for instance), and there are no leads to further resources, but this salutary (in more ways than one) micro-history will have young readers lifting their shakers in tribute. (Picture book/nonfiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-399-23998-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006
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