A bright bouquet of poems, petals, and values.
Twenty-four haiku / link flowers and mindfulness / in every season!
In the same spirit as her My Mindful A to Zen: 26 Wellbeing Haiku for Happy Little Minds (2021), Patel-Sage addresses readers with haiku that only seem to be about flowers: “Snowdrop,” for instance—“Pushing up through snow / these delicate flowers are / stronger than they look”—likely refers obliquely to a child using a wheelchair in the accompanying illustration. Similarly, a child poses heroically in front of “proud and confident” hollyhocks, the value of “Borage” as a companion plant is reflected in the intimate glance two young gardeners exchange, and cherry blossoms “gently fall like a / joyful springtime gift” over one child receiving a folded paper crane from another. Along with being racially and culturally diverse, the smiling, wide-eyed cast includes a youngster using a prosthetic limb, an adult couple of ambiguous gender in a Christmas scene, and what appears to be a same-sex couple in a Hindu-style wedding. “Floral Fun Facts” about some of the selected flowers at the end add light doses of lore and natural science. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A bright bouquet of poems, petals, and values. (Picture-book poetry. 6-9)Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-913747-99-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lantana
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book.
Ada Twist’s incessant stream of questions leads to answers that help solve a neighborhood crisis.
Ada conducts experiments at home to answer questions such as, why does Mom’s coffee smell stronger than Dad’s coffee? Each answer leads to another question, another hypothesis, and another experiment, which is how she goes from collecting data on backyard birds for a citizen-science project to helping Rosie Revere figure out how to get her uncle Ned down from the sky, where his helium-filled “perilous pants” are keeping him afloat. The Questioneers—Rosie the engineer, Iggy Peck the architect, and Ada the scientist—work together, asking questions like scientists. Armed with knowledge (of molecules and air pressure, force and temperature) but more importantly, with curiosity, Ada works out a solution. Ada is a recognizable, three-dimensional girl in this delightfully silly chapter book: tirelessly curious and determined yet easily excited and still learning to express herself. If science concepts aren’t completely clear in this romp, relationships and emotions certainly are. In playful full- and half-page illustrations that break up the text, Ada is black with Afro-textured hair; Rosie and Iggy are white. A closing section on citizen science may inspire readers to get involved in science too; on the other hand, the “Ode to a Gas!” may just puzzle them. Other backmatter topics include the importance of bird study and the threat palm-oil use poses to rainforests.
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3422-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Models attention to detail and deductive reasoning in a fun beach setting, complete with interesting facts.
Beachcombers and shell seekers, gather ’round and meet Shelby and Watts, Planetary Investigators.
When Fred the hermit crab can’t find a new, larger shell to move into, he seeks out the “brilliant brains” of Shelby and Watts. Shelby, a fox, is the detective in the duo, and Watts, a badger, loves facts, adding simple fun ones—about hermit crabs, tides, tide-pool dwellers, how shells are used, etc.—throughout the story. Watts also loves to catalog clues in his notebook. In fact, the first mystery that Shelby solves is that of Watts’ lost notebook. Young readers can watch Shelby investigate, solve, and explain her deductive process, all while learning to carefully examine all the details in each graphic panel. Once the missing shells are found, it’s “time for the hermit crab shuffle,” in which the members of a colony of hermit crabs all line up and trade up to larger homes. Final pages include “Earth-Saving Tips from Shelby & Watts,” such as taking pictures of shells instead of collecting them, eating seafood from sustainable sources, and cleaning up the beach. The seven chapters are of varying length, but with several one-panel pages and many pages with low word count, the book is shorter than it appears, which should be a confidence boost for young readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Models attention to detail and deductive reasoning in a fun beach setting, complete with interesting facts. (Graphic early reader/mystery. 6-9)Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-20531-0
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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