The simple is juxtaposed with the challenging, making the book both flexible and hard to pin down, audience-wise.
Flatt and Barron’s second in the Math in Nature series solves many of the first’s problems, though the rhythms and rhymes remain inconsistent, and there is still no answer key.
Flatt leads readers through sorting, charts and comparisons, though they will need familiarity with these concepts—math is tested but not taught in these pages, and the questions are not always the most basic. “If 8 hummingbird eggs equal 4 robin eggs, which two ratios are correct: 3 to 1, 8 to 4, 5 to 1, 2 to 1?” On a page that finds the fox family wondering what Father will catch: “Is their dinner impossibly, unlikely, likely, or certainly a vole? A gray squirrel? A rabbit? A cat?” Several pages also ask open-ended questions, allowing readers to both construct meaning from the artwork and explain it. “Nature Notes” give a few brief facts about the featured creatures. As in Counting on Fall (2012), Barron’s gorgeous cut-paper collages are certainly the highlight, drenching every page in spring sights and colors. Objects are easy to delineate from the background, though that doesn’t always mean that the answers are easy to find: On the schooling smelt page, readers are asked to find two patterns. One is a simple, ABA repeating pattern, while the other asks readers to notice that the groups of fish increase by two.
The simple is juxtaposed with the challenging, making the book both flexible and hard to pin down, audience-wise. (Math picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: March 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-926973-59-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Quietly contemplative and thoroughly lovely.
A child finds adventure and a change of perspective on a dreary day.
Clouds cover everything in a palette of unending gray, creating a sense of ennui and gloom. A child stands alone, head down, feeling as gray as the day, and decides to ride through town on an old bike. Pops of color throughout the grayscale illustrations go unnoticed—there are yellow leaves scattered about, and the parking lot is filled with bright yellow buses, but this child, who has skin the grayish white of the page, sees only the empty playground, creaky swings, a sad merry-go-round, and lonely seesaws. But look—there’s a narrow winding path just beyond the fence, something to explore. There are things to be noticed, leaves to be crunched, and discoveries to be made. Imagination takes over, along with senses of wonderment and calm, as the child watches a large blue bird fly over the area. The ride home is quite different, joyful and filled with color previously ignored, reaffirming the change in the rider’s outlook. The descriptive, spare text filled with imagery and onomatopoeia is well aligned with well-rendered art highlighting all the colors that brighten the not-so-gray day and allowing readers to see what the protagonist struggles to understand, that “anything can happen…on a gray day.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Quietly contemplative and thoroughly lovely. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781797210896
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
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