The indomitable heroine of two previous picture books returns to provide readers with her own take on environmentalism: “Nature is something I know lots about. We’ve got lots of it in our backyard.” Joined with her old nemesis, Robert Granger, by her new nemesis, the humorless Mrs. Wilberton, on a school project about snails and worms, she nevertheless manages to put her own individual stamp on it when her brother Kurt stages a sit-in to protest the cutting down of a neighborhood tree. Child’s signature style (Clarice Bean, Guess Who’s Babysitting, 2001, etc.), which combines cartoony line-and-watercolor figures with photographic collage, is, if possible, even more unrestrained than in her previous outings. Mrs. Wilberton looks like a spiky cross between Viola Swamp and Ms. Frizzle (her glasses bristle with malevolent energy), while Clarice’s businessman father appears complete with five o’clock shadow. The typeface is fully integrated with the overall design—each character speaks in an individualized font—and frequently spirals wildly over the page, even as the story itself goes wackily over the top. Clarice’s precocious voice is nearly perfect, as she parrots half-understood adult phrases in her own narration: “Dad would much rather cook for a living but he’s up to his ears in the wheeling and dealing business and someone’s got to bring home the bacon.” At the end, Clarice Bean declares herself an ecowarrior, and while child readers are likely to be as unclear on that concept as Clarice herself is, the busy illustrations, the frenetic pacing, and the crazed good humor with which Clarice’s whole family involves itself in the protest will elicit (though less reluctantly) the same praise given by Mrs. Wilberton: “Well done, Clarice Bean!” (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-1696-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An earnest but energetic tribute to diversity, done up with postmodern arrays of smiling, stylized, lozenge-headed children paired to a rollicking celebration of: “Your coffee and cream skin, / your warm cocoa dream skin . . . / Your chocolate chip, double dip sundae supreme skin! / Your marshmallow treat skin, / your spun sugar sweet skin . . . / your cherry topped, candy dropped, frosting complete skin.” Tyler also urges readers to think about the commonality of “The skin that you laugh in; / the skin that you cry in; / the skin that you look to / the sky and ask, ‘Why?’ in.” Though he changes his tone and plies a verbal mallet to drive his point home in the last several verses, the earlier wordplay more than compensates—while glimpses of one child in a wheelchair, and another held by a biracial couple, expand the general theme to encompass more than skin color alone. A sonically playful, if just a bit overlong, alternative to Sheila Hamanaka’s All the Colors of the Earth (1994). (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-9759580-0-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chicago Children’s Museum/IPG
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The story feels a bit contrived, but Ada will be a welcome addition to the small circle of science-loving girls in the...
Using science and technology, third-grader Ada Lace kicks off her new series by solving a mystery even with her leg in a cast.
Temporarily housebound after a badly executed bungee jump, Ada uses binoculars to document the ecosystem of her new neighborhood in San Francisco. She records her observations in a field journal, a project that intrigues new friend Nina, who lives nearby. When they see that Ms. Reed’s dog, Marguerite, is missing, they leap to the conclusion that it has been stolen. Nina does the legwork and Ada provides the technology for their search for the dognapper. Story-crafting takes a back seat to scene-setting in this series kickoff that introduces the major players. As part of the series formula, science topics and gadgetry are integrated into the stories and further explained in a “Behind the Science” afterword. This installment incorporates drones, a wireless camera, gecko gloves, and the Turing test as well as the concept of an ecosystem. There are no ethnic indicators in the text, but the illustrations reveal that Ada, her family, and bratty neighbor Milton are white; Nina appears to be Southeast Asian; and Mr. Peebles, an inventor who lives nearby, is black.
The story feels a bit contrived, but Ada will be a welcome addition to the small circle of science-loving girls in the chapter-book world. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8599-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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