Nevertheless, Kurki’s attractive and colorful illustrations and the wealth of information in this unusual bird book will...
This introductory guide is a smorgasbord of information about the more common species of birds.
The beginning spreads introduce children to habitat and critical bird identifiers, including size, behavior, plumage and song. The left-hand page of each subsequent spread profiles one bird with a magazine-style patchwork of interesting facts, trivia and even poems about the bird. The opposite page includes more fascinating tidbits and key characteristics of the featured bird and brief descriptions of other related birds, grouped by habitat. (Did you know the American robin eats 68 worms a day or that the barn owl has asymmetrical earholes?) While clearly intended for North American readers, the book also profiles several Eurasian birds, among them the British blue tit, magpie, golden oriole and Eurasian jay. This may cause confusion or at least disappointment, since North American readers are highly unlikely ever to encounter these birds. The European golden oriole seems a particularly awkward choice, as it is pictured alongside the North American Baltimore oriole, which is not related to the Eurasian species but is a member of the blackbird family.
Nevertheless, Kurki’s attractive and colorful illustrations and the wealth of information in this unusual bird book will encourage children to observe the birds around them, whichever continent they may inhabit. (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: June 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-57912-969-9
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Here is an adventure in a unique setting. The lively text and lovely watercolors document three and a half months of a summer the artist and author spent at the South Pole, as part of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists & Writers Program. Hooper describes everyday life aboard the research ship Laurence M. Gould, a sturdy orange icebreaker that scientists use to travel between the islands to study the wide variety of animals who come each year to breed and raise their young. An assortment of penguins, elephant seals, giant petrels, huge skuas, and leopard seals hold center stage. Scientists are less important than the serious business of successfully raising young in the short summer season. The author captures the drama of the ice-cold ocean, alive with life: “Swarms of barrel-shaped blue-tinged salps, stuck together in floating chains. Minute creatures with red eyes. Sliding through the water in a curving path like a ribbon.” The artist provides striking paintings of the landscape and the animals in soft washy colors, and quick pencil sketches. The ice is lemon gold with mauve shadows, and the sea a silver gray in the 24-hour day. Animals are expressive and individual. The krill, the tiny shrimp-like creatures that form the backbone of the ocean food chain, appear in luminous glory. The author concludes with a page on global warming, a map of the islands visited, and an index. From cover to cover a personal and informative journey. (Nonfiction. 7-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7922-7188-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
The author of When Bugs Were Big, Plants Were Strange, and Tetrapods Stalked the Earth (2003) continues her droll but dependable tour of deep prehistory, focusing here on the flora, fauna and fungi of the Silurian and Devonian Periods, approximately 360 to 44 million years ago. This was the time when larger forms of life began to emerge on land, while, among the far richer variety of marine animals, fish wriggled to the top, thanks to newly developed jaws which allowed them “to say good-bye to a monotonous diet of teensy stuff. Now fish could grab, slice and dice to their heart’s content.” By the end, soil, forests and, of course, feet had also appeared. Fearlessly folding in tongue-challenging names and mixing simply drawn reconstructions and maps with goofy flights of fancy—on the first spread Robin Mite and Friar Millipede are caught on a stroll through Sherwood Moss Patch, and on the last, genial nautiloid Amphicyrtoceras plugs the previous volume—Bonner serves up a second heaping course of science that will both stick to the ribs and tickle them. (index, resource lists, time line) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4263-0078-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
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