An also-ran bearing a respectable informational payload but inching along a well-covered track.
After a year of digging, sifting, baking, sweeping, and photographing the surface of Mars, it’s party time.
Unlike Sara Schonfeld’s effervescent Birthday on Mars!, illustrated by Andrew J. Ross (2019), this introduction to the durable Curiosity (still ticking over six years after its original mission’s conclusion) is as dry overall as the red planet itself. “Ack! Spooked by my own shadow. That happens when you’re the ONLY ONE on a planet,” reads Curiosity’s narration, set in a typeface that looks like a digital readout. Supplemental text explains, “Shadows are made on Mars in the same way they are formed on Earth, by an object blocking the light. In this case, the rover is blocking sunlight.” In strained efforts to inject some color into Gray’s drab descriptions of Curiosity’s gear, activities, and surroundings, Magoon tops the angularly drawn rover’s “ChemCam” with a perky party hat partway through, litters the dimly lit Martian landscape with printed invitations, and, confusingly, rolls in a nonexistent second rover bearing party balloons to get the festivities underway. Readers will likely find the closing author’s note, which includes a dramatic account of the rover’s landing, notes on each of its six specialized cameras, and several color photos, more memorable than the stolid preceding narrative.
An also-ran bearing a respectable informational payload but inching along a well-covered track. (bibliography) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-64648-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sweet art, cloying storyline.
Actor Andrews and her daughter Walton Hamilton pay tribute to the power of music.
The inhabitants of a small village are happy with “simple pleasures” until they commercialize to attract tourists…whereupon a dismal purple mist creeps in and thickens to the point that people stop visiting or even going outside. Then one day little Piccolino, who is helping his father dust the deserted opera house, plinks out a tune on the piano…and notices that the palms in the lobby look fresher. The brown-skinned pair proceed to gather wilting houseplants from all over town, park them in the auditorium seats, and call the orchestra members in for a concert. The plants flourish, the fog lifts, and throngs of villagers are drawn out into the streets by the music to dance and sing. Everyone realizes that “if they remained faithful to all that matters most, nothing could darken their days again.” In a closing note the authors state that they were inspired by an actual concert played in Barcelona in 2020 to an “audience” of plants—a piece of performance art more likely to stimulate discussion than this trite, sugary mess. The illustrations are one bright spot: MacKay places her gracefully posed, diverse figures in luminously hued scenes of narrow streets and neatly kept buildings perched on a steep hill and threaded with musical staves. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Sweet art, cloying storyline. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781419763199
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Produced to celebrate the National Park Service’s upcoming centenary, a breezy invitation to prospective travelers to “get...
A family road trip through several national parks transforms young Jane’s feelings about missing out on a summer of online fun with her friends.
“There’s absolutely nothing to see here,” Jane emails fretfully as her family drives through the scenic Smoky Mountains and canoes past alligators and manatees in the Everglades. But once her dad gets her to put the tablet away and look through a telescope at the night skies over Big Bend National Park, her attitude transforms: “OH WOW!” Soon she’s tiptoeing over the Grand Canyon’s Skywalk like an acrobat, playing pirate on a raft down the Colorado River, scouting out “Mountain lions, buffalo, and bears. Oh my!” in Yellowstone—and, discovering that she’s misplaced her electronic device, sending written postcards to her friends from Yosemite. Furthermore, once back home, what better way to debrief than a backyard cookout under the stars? Giving blonde Jane and the rest of her white family broad, pleasant features, Rogers sends them smiling and singing their way through a succession of natural wonders, with bears and bald eagles, footnotes (adult supervision required on the Skywalk, for instance), and only a few fellow, occasionally diverse tourists in the background. Endpaper maps track the long itinerary, and a (select) list of other national parks and sites in each state offers more destinations.
Produced to celebrate the National Park Service’s upcoming centenary, a breezy invitation to prospective travelers to “get out there!” (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-246835-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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