Orbiting between poetic lullaby and astro-powered essentials, Salas and Kim provide a great addition to a nighttime-window...
In this inventive and spirited exploration, poetry and science come together to introduce young readers to the role of the moon in our lives here on Earth.
The book opens on a young, light-skinned girl reading in bed; there’s a telescope next to it. She looks out at the moon and says, “I wish I could do exactly nothing, just like you.” The personified moon answers back, offering poetic sentiments that note the several overlooked benefits and often misunderstood facts about our partner in space. The spare primary text is supplemented by blocks of text, set in a smaller font, that explicate it. (For scientific clarity, the illustrations and tidbits were guided and reviewed for accuracy by an astrophysicist.) The text moves through the phases of the moon, then into the role that the moon plays in the ocean tides, along to the world of moonlit nocturnal animals, and finally rounds out with the ways that the moon has been tied into world cultures, including the moon masks of the Baule people of the Ivory Coast and Emily Dickinson. Each illustration is tinged with starlight, making the book a pleasant nighttime read. It’s also apt for the classroom, as the glossary supports an introductory astronomy lesson.
Orbiting between poetic lullaby and astro-powered essentials, Salas and Kim provide a great addition to a nighttime-window reading shelf and/or early-science classroom. (further reading) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4677-8009-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Millbrook/Lerner
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
Though told by two outsiders to the culture, this timely and well-crafted story will educate readers on the preciousness of...
An international story tackles a serious global issue with Reynolds’ characteristic visual whimsy.
Gie Gie—aka Princess Gie Gie—lives with her parents in Burkina Faso. In her kingdom under “the African sky, so wild and so close,” she can tame wild dogs with her song and make grass sway, but despite grand attempts, she can neither bring the water closer to home nor make it clean. French words such as “maintenant!” (now!) and “maman” (mother) and local color like the karite tree and shea nuts place the story in a French-speaking African country. Every morning, Gie Gie and her mother perch rings of cloth and large clay pots on their heads and walk miles to the nearest well to fetch murky, brown water. The story is inspired by model Georgie Badiel, who founded the Georgie Badiel Foundation to make clean water accessible to West Africans. The details in Reynolds’ expressive illustrations highlight the beauty of the West African landscape and of Princess Gie Gie, with her cornrowed and beaded hair, but will also help readers understand that everyone needs clean water—from the children of Burkina Faso to the children of Flint, Michigan.
Though told by two outsiders to the culture, this timely and well-crafted story will educate readers on the preciousness of potable water. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-17258-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy.
Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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