In a sequence of paintings that are colloquies of color, Vila traces the development of Manhattan from uninhabited island to teeming metropolis. Applying paint thinly so that the texture of the canvas shows through, she emphasizes warm browns and yellows in depicting pompom-like trees and a rich array of wildlife, which then gives way in succession to early Lenape, Dutch and English settlers and to great waves of other immigrants. Two huge bridges span the East River, modern traffic fills a complex swirl of paved interchanges and tourists tote bags covered in stickers from all over the world. Perspectives range from high angles to vertiginous, straight-up ground-level looks at towering skyscrapers. Each picture comes with a one-line caption (“These settlers built a colony, and then a nation where new freedoms grew”), supplemented at the end with a brief annotated timeline. This historical approach sets her engaging debut apart from others of its ilk and will give young visitors and residents both some insight into how the city has changed over the centuries. (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-670-06284-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2008
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
Hodgkins’s entry in the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series draws a visual timeline from centuries back, when humans’ dreams of flying evolved into reality. The succinct, simplified text cites human efforts to fly like birds and describes the aeronautical physics of gliding using drag force, thrust and lift. Kelley’s breezy illustrations convey a buoyant tone and keep the explanations understandable for curious young minds. Two pages of backmatter provide “Flying Facts” and instructions for making a paper airplane. Lightly touching on everything from the days of imagining the winged Icarus and dreaming of wings to today’s nonchalance about air travel, this is a welcome addition to easy science books about humans and flight. (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-029558-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Collins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2007
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