A solid companion for anyone planning a museum visit.
Stroll through this guide to meet the people behind the scenes at a science museum…and learn a bit about the science on display.
Curator, educator, exhibit designer, collections manager, preparator, taxidermist, conservator, and diorama artist: Each explains their job. Among the many scientists working in the museum, we encounter a geologist, a mineralogist, a seismologist, a volcanologist, several varieties of paleontologist, several types of zoologist (including an entomologist), aquatic and invertebrate biologists, and an astronomer. They introduce the exhibits and provide tidbits on their work and area of expertise. Interspersed throughout are scientific facts: Great white sharks in Cape Town ambush fur seals; volcano eruptions can wipe out entire cities. These random focal points do suggest the wide range of scientific topics covered at the museum, though they make for a somewhat scattered effect. We finish with the planetarium, and then, outside the museum, with a community scientist and a shoutout to curiosity. Text, speech balloons, and sidebar cartouches provide information about the museum itself, its structure, and its contents. Tokuda-Hall’s explanations are clear and comprehensible, interspersed with goofy jokes. Spiked with bright colors, Leng’s vibrant, delightful line art depicts people who vary in terms of age, skin tone, and ability.
A solid companion for anyone planning a museum visit. (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9781452176826
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: today
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A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again.
Cece loves asking “why” and “what if.”
Her parents encourage her, as does her science teacher, Ms. Curie (a wink to adult readers). When Cece and her best friend, Isaac, pair up for a science project, they choose zoology, brainstorming questions they might research. They decide to investigate whether dogs eat vegetables, using Cece’s schnauzer, Einstein, and the next day they head to Cece’s lab (inside her treehouse). Wearing white lab coats, the two observe their subject and then offer him different kinds of vegetables, alone and with toppings. Cece is discouraged when Einstein won’t eat them. She complains to her parents, “Maybe I’m not a real scientist after all….Our project was boring.” Just then, Einstein sniffs Cece’s dessert, leading her to try a new way to get Einstein to eat vegetables. Cece learns that “real scientists have fun finding answers too.” Harrison’s clean, bright illustrations add expression and personality to the story. Science report inserts are reminiscent of The Magic Schoolbus books, with less detail. Biracial Cece is a brown, freckled girl with curly hair; her father is white, and her mother has brown skin and long, black hair; Isaac and Ms. Curie both have pale skin and dark hair. While the book doesn’t pack a particularly strong emotional or educational punch, this endearing protagonist earns a place on the children’s STEM shelf.
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again. (glossary) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-249960-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort.
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)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-5625-9
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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