Readers will be sucked in despite the certainty of spaghettification.
Astro nut Jordie fully appreciates the gravity of the situation when a black hole appears inside her school desk.
In an episode that leaves no pun unturned, the unwelcome if exciting visitor, showing “less-than-stellar” manners, quickly gobbles down Jordie’s crayons, lunchbox, and other stuff—and worse, once she contrives to sneak it home, everything in her room (except a pair of unicorn underwear), including her dog, Neptune. There’s nothing for it but to take the plunge herself despite the discomfort of feeling her body stretching out like a noodle (a gravity effect that astrophysicists, as Boyle explains in an afterword, evocatively call being “spaghettified”) and the fact that there’s no obvious way to escape since black holes trap even light. In the cartoon illustrations, Jordie, a light-skinned child with unruly blond hair, faces off against a growing black blot with googly eyes as her parents, her brown-skinned teacher, and her racially diverse classmates remain oblivious. Readers may wonder how she’s ever going to get out of her predicament, but, being observant as well as clever (a good combination for a budding scientist), she has a snappy solution that she pulls out of her pocket as soon as she’s gathered up her noodled pooch and other possessions. Then she boots the voracious vagrant into the sky, where it can “graze galaxies and slurp stars” to its heart’s content. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Readers will be sucked in despite the certainty of spaghettification. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-53411-152-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
An introduction to Venus that shows the planet at her most verbally and visually vivacious.
The solar system’s hottest diva struts her stuff.
The titular character’s claim that she’s the only goddess among the planetary gods may leave partisans of “Gaea” (technically not an official name, but still) feeling a little miffed. That aside, Venus still has plenty to crow about—from having higher surface temperatures than Mercury, to sporting a day that’s longer than her year, to spinning so the sun comes up in the west. Joining McAnulty’s other solar system soliloquies with the same engaging mix of facts and attitude (“Earth has clouds. I don’t…just have clouds. I’m smothered in them!”), Venus shines up from the page. She sports a proud expression on her broad face, whether hovering with windswept golden locks over a seashell like her Botticellian counterpart or floating in space, waving to her earthly and celestial fans with stubby limbs. Closing with a review quiz and a roundup of basic statistics, this animated planetary self-portrait will give young readers more reason than ever to pay proper attention to the brightest of our non-stellar astronomical neighbors.
An introduction to Venus that shows the planet at her most verbally and visually vivacious. (bibliography) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781250334473
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Odd Dot
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so...
A pro bono Twinkie of a book invites readers to fly off in a magic plane to bring clean water to our planet’s oceans, deserts, and brown children.
Following a confusingly phrased suggestion beneath a soft-focus world map to “touch the Earth. Now touch where you live,” a shake of the volume transforms it into a plane with eyes and feathered wings that flies with the press of a flat, gray “button” painted onto the page. Pressing like buttons along the journey releases a gush of fresh water from the ground—and later, illogically, provides a filtration device that changes water “from yucky to clean”—for thirsty groups of smiling, brown-skinned people. At other stops, a tap on the button will “help irrigate the desert,” and touching floating bottles and other debris in the ocean supposedly makes it all disappear so the fish can return. The 20 children Coh places on a globe toward the end are varied of skin tone, but three of the four young saviors she plants in the flier’s cockpit as audience stand-ins are white. The closing poem isn’t so openly parochial, though it seldom rises above vague feel-good sentiments: “Love the Earth, the moon and sun. / All the children can be one.”
“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so easy to clean the place up and give everyone a drink? (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5107-2083-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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