A comprehensive account engagingly presented.
Earth’s climate has changed before, but science shows us that now it’s changing more quickly and with serious consequences—what can be done?
The team that produced Hey There, Earth Dweller! (2019) returns to explain “the big story of climate change.” In 10 neatly organized chapters, Horst provides historical background, describes research, discusses causes and consequences, and presents a variety of present-day and potential remedies. He refers to current debates as “squabbling” and emphasizes the point that most scientists agree there’s a problem. Each chapter begins with a summary and list of topics; a line reminding readers of the chapter subject appears along one edge of each spread. The writer addresses his young readers directly in a reassuring, conversational tone. He talks about the origin of fossil fuels, the Industrial Revolution, and bovine methane emissions. He includes a story from First Nations Australians reflecting knowledge of the sea level rise that created the Coral Sea as well as the “hockey stick” graph showing the rise in Earth’s temperature over the last thousand years. Panders’ lighthearted illustrations offset the weight of the substantial text. Sadly, the opening map wildly distorts the size of Northern Hemisphere continents and islands. All the measurements in this Canadian-published Dutch import are metric; this is appropriate in a science book, but U.S. readers unaccustomed to this world standard may find themselves confused. A mordant “climate bingo” game concludes the book.
A comprehensive account engagingly presented. (acknowledgments, index) (Nonfiction. 9-15)Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77164-682-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Greystone Kids
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care.
In 1977, the oil carrier Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into a formerly pristine Alaskan ocean inlet, killing millions of birds, animals, and fish. Despite a cleanup, crude oil is still there.
The Winters foretold the destructive powers of the atomic bomb allusively in The Secret Project (2017), leaving the actuality to the backmatter. They make no such accommodations to young audiences in this disturbing book. From the dark front cover, on which oily blobs conceal a seabird, to the rescuer’s sad face on the back, the mother-son team emphasizes the disaster. A relatively easy-to-read and poetically heightened text introduces the situation. Oil is pumped from the Earth “all day long, all night long, / day after day, year after year” in “what had been unspoiled land, home to Native people // and thousands of caribou.” The scale of extraction is huge: There’s “a giant pipeline” leading to “enormous ships.” Then, crash. Rivers of oil gush out over three full-bleed wordless pages. Subsequent scenes show rocks, seabirds, and sea otters covered with oil. Finally, 30 years later, animals have returned to a cheerful scene. “But if you lift a rock… // oil / seeps / up.” For an adult reader, this is heartbreaking. How much more difficult might this be for an animal-loving child?
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 9-12)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3077-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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