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THEY CALL ME RIVER

Name: THEY CALL ME RIVER
Author: Maciek Albrecht
ISBN: 978-1-944903-96-1

by Maciek Albrecht ; illustrated by Maciek Albrecht ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 13, 2021

An affecting metaphor for the cycle of life.

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A river is born and carried along, from source to sea, where the cycle will begin again.

Striking painted-and-collaged artwork depicts the long journey as the river itself narrates its story, beginning as rain high above in the mountains. Then it tumbles along over stones, through towns, getting ever bigger, “testing [its] boundaries,” merging with other rivers, encountering obstacles and quiet places, until eventually it “meet[s] the great ocean” and “become[s] one” with it. “And then, drop by drop, / I return to the sky. / And I begin again….” Children will quickly notice that though it’s not mentioned in the text, another parallel and similar story is taking place alongside the river’s story in the illustrations. Beginning at the foot of the mountain where the river begins, a human life is also starting. First depicted as a White-presenting babe in arms, the child is seen growing, testing boundaries with a thrilling leap into the river, in due course getting married, encountering obstacles and places of respite, until eventually, just as the river remarks, “There is more of me behind than ahead.” This now-aged adult is last seen in a tiny boat with sea life teeming beneath. “I’m grateful. I let go.” In his debut as an author, Albrecht, an award-winning producer of animated films for children, presents a gentle and approachable view on life and mortality.

An affecting metaphor for the cycle of life. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: April 13, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-944903-96-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Cameron + Company

Review Posted Online: March 1, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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BUTT OR FACE?

by Kari Lavelle ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2023

A gleeful game for budding naturalists.

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Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.

In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: July 11, 2023

ISBN: 9781728271170

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore

Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
ODE TO GRAPEFRUIT
by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Bryan Collier

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WE MOVE THE WORLD
by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Nabi H. Ali

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ANIMAL ARCHITECTS

From the Amazing Animals series

by Amy Cherrix ; illustrated by Chris Sasaki ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 2021

An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort.

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A look at the unique ways that 11 globe-spanning animal species construct their homes.

Each creature garners two double-page spreads, which Cherrix enlivens with compelling and at-times jaw-dropping facts. The trapdoor spider constructs a hidden burrow door from spider silk. Sticky threads, fanning from the entrance, vibrate “like a silent doorbell” when walked upon by unwitting insect prey. Prairie dogs expertly dig communal burrows with designated chambers for “sleeping, eating, and pooping.” The largest recorded “town” occupied “25,000 miles and housed as many as 400 million prairie dogs!” Female ants are “industrious insects” who can remove more than a ton of dirt from their colony in a year. Cathedral termites use dirt and saliva to construct solar-cooled towers 30 feet high. Sasaki’s lively pictures borrow stylistically from the animal compendiums of mid-20th-century children’s lit; endpapers and display type elegantly suggest the blues of cyanotypes and architectural blueprints. Jarringly, the lead spread cheerfully extols the prowess of the corals of the Great Barrier Reef, “the world’s largest living structure,” while ignoring its accelerating, human-abetted destruction. Calamitously, the honeybee hive is incorrectly depicted as a paper-wasps’ nest, and the text falsely states that chewed beeswax “hardens into glue to shape the hive.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)

An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort. (selected sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)