In parallel plotlines, two stars are born—one to flare in space and another sort on Earth to shed light on how.
In celestial deeps, illustrator Roy portrays dust and dirt gradually coalescing into a cloud that whirls ever more violently and at last ignites. Meanwhile, in side-by-side foreground scenes, a British child who thrills at the “lightning bolt of discovery” attendant on close observations of the natural world around her persistently chases that love through schools that discourage girls and women from such pursuits…all the way to the Harvard College Observatory. There she finds not only kindred female spirits, but also astronomical evidence leading to a blinding flash of insight about what stars are made of and in what proportions. Along with adding more detail about both the stellar career of Cecilia Payne, 25 years old when she made her revolutionary discovery in 1925, and about star formation in an afterword, Larson makes explicit her message to readers who burn to find out and to understand. “Cecilia proved not only what makes a star but also what makes a star scientist: curiosity, passion, hard work, and belief in oneself.” The swirling, whirling vortex cuts a dramatic figure in Roy’s glimmering starscapes; in the overset panels, Payne and her fellow students and associates, all White presenting, are drawn with sketchy grace in period dress and settings. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A luminous thematic pairing. (timeline) (Picture-book biography. 7-9)Pub Date: today
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7287-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Categories: CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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A highlights reel of the great scientist’s life and achievements, from clandestine early schooling to the founding of Warsaw’s Radium Institute.
In big sequential panels Bayarri dashes through Curie’s career, barely pausing at significant moments (“Mother! A letter just arrived. It’s from Sweden,” announces young Irène. “Oh, really?…They’re awarding me another Nobel!”) in a seeming rush to cover her youth, family life, discoveries, World War I work, and later achievements (with only a closing timeline noting her death, of “aplastic anemia”). Button-eyed but recognizable figures in the panels pour out lecture-ish dialogue. This is well stocked with names and scientific terms but offered with little or no context—characteristics shared by co-published profiles on Albert Einstein and the Theory of Relativity (“You and your thought experiments, Albert!” “We love it! The other day, Schrödinger thought up one about a cat”), Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution, and Isaac Newton and the Laws of Motion. Dark-skinned Tierra del Fuegans make appearances in Darwin, prompting the young naturalist to express his strong anti-slavery views; otherwise the cast is white throughout the series. Engagingly informal as the art and general tone of the narratives are, the books will likely find younger readers struggling to keep up, but kids already exposed to the names and at least some of the concepts will find these imports, translated from the Basque, helpful if, at times, dry overviews.
Together with its companions, too rushed to be first introductions but suitable as second ones. (glossary, index, resource list) (Graphic biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5415-7821-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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A detachable acetate eyepiece lets budding engineers peek into buildings, the inner workings of vehicles from bicycles to submarines, and even a human torso.
Peering through the colored spyglass embedded in the front cover at Lozano’s cartoon scenes makes large areas of red stippling or crosshatching disappear, revealing electrical wiring and other infrastructure in or under buildings, robots at work on an assembly line, the insides of a jet and a container ship, and other hidden areas or facilities. Though younger viewers will get general pictures of how, for instance, internal-combustion (but not electric) cars are propelled, what MRIs and ultrasound scans reveal, and the main steps in printing and binding books, overall the visual detail is radically simplified in Lozano’s assemblages of cartoon images. Likewise, the sheaves of descriptive captions are light on specifics—noting that airplane wings create lift but neglecting to explain just how, say, or why maglev train magnets are supercooled. Still, Wilsher introduces simple machines at the outset (five of the six, anyway), and the ensuing selection of complex ones is current enough to include a spy drone and Space X’s Falcon 9 rocket. Along with displaying a range of skin tones, the human cast of machine users visible in most scenes includes an astronomer wearing a hijab. All in all, it’s a revealing, if sketchy, roll toward David Macaulay’s The Way Things Work Now (2016).
Just the ticket for mechanically curious kids. (Informational novelty. 7-9)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-912920-20-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: What on Earth Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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