Marvelous as a read-aloud and as a springboard to maker projects in classrooms and libraries.
A loving ode to folks who get their hands dirty doing nitty-gritty jobs.
It’s all well and good that visionaries—authors, illustrators, scientists, illustrators, architects, and engineers—plot ideas on paper, easels, blueprints, computers, and blackboards, but thoughts, designs, and plans remain figments until pipe fitters, diggers, solderers, construction workers, carpenters, welders, miners, electricians, plumbers, and countless others get down to business and bring dreams to fruition by actually making what creators envisioned. Skyscrapers and houses don’t rise on their own, and bridges don’t span waterways by themselves. And books don’t get published by magic, either! Who gets those words and pictures—as in this very book kids are reading/hearing—onto pages? Why, typesetters and workers who run the presses and load the paper machines! This is a gorgeous, respectful tribute, expressed in jaunty rhymes that read well, to the dignity and beauty of industry and the pride and pleasure derived from doing one’s best. The word build is repeatedly italicized for emphasis. Crisp, definitively lined illustrations superbly suit the robust theme. They reveal many future-job possibilities to kids and, happily, depict multiple genders and persons of various races plying various blue-collar and professional trades, including a Black woman reading to kids at a library storytime; one character appears in a wheelchair. Tool and vehicle aficionados will feel at home. (This book was reviewed digitally with 8.9-by-22.8-inch double-page spreads viewed at 35.4% of actual size.)
Marvelous as a read-aloud and as a springboard to maker projects in classrooms and libraries. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984814-33-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
This lacks the information of other nonfiction titles and the pizzazz of April Pulley Sayre’s Go, Go, Grapes! (2012), but it...
The prolific Gibbons tackles fruits—how they grow, their parts, and what portions we eat.
Beginning with facts about perennial and annual fruits and how many servings children should aim for each day, the book then looks at how fruits can grow on plants, bushes, vines, and trees. Good vocabulary is introduced and defined along the way—botanist, pollination, cultivated. The middle of the book is taken up by individual looks at 13 different kinds of fruits that show cutaway views labeled with parts, the whole plant/bush/vine/tree, and some of the popular varieties—for grapes, golden muscat, red flame, and concord. This is followed by a discussion of growing seasons and climates, large farms versus backyard ones, harvesting fruit and getting it to market, and some other fruits that were not featured in the text, including star fruits, apricots, and persimmons. A final page lists more fruit facts and two websites (one for the United States, one for Canada) about food guidelines. The text sometimes gets lost in Gibbons’ busy and full pages, and while her illustrations are detailed and specific for each type of fruit, the watercolors won’t make mouths water.
This lacks the information of other nonfiction titles and the pizzazz of April Pulley Sayre’s Go, Go, Grapes! (2012), but it may be just the ticket before a school trip to a farm. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3204-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
A solid, small step for diversifying STEM stories.
What does Annie want to be?
As career day approaches, Annie wants to keep her job choice secret until her family sees her presentation at school. Readers will figure it out, however, through the title and clues Tadgell incorporates into the illustrations. Family members make guesses about her ambitions that are tied to their own passions, although her brother watches as she completes her costume in a bedroom with a Mae Jemison poster, starry décor, and a telescope. There’s a celebratory mood at the culminating presentation, where Annie says she wants to “soar high through the air” like her basketball-playing mother, “explore faraway places” like her hiker dad, and “be brave and bold” like her baker grandmother (this feels forced, but oven mitts are part of her astronaut costume) so “the whole world will hear my exciting stories” like her reporter grandfather. Annie jumps off a chair to “BLAST OFF” in a small illustration superimposed on a larger picture depicting her floating in space with a reddish ground below. It’s unclear if Annie imagines this scene or if it’s her future-self exploring Mars, but either scenario fits the aspirational story. Backmatter provides further reading suggestions and information about the moon and four women astronauts, one of whom is Jemison. Annie and her family are all black.
A solid, small step for diversifying STEM stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-88448-523-0
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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