A bit thin on coverage but exuberant and engaging.
Molds and mushrooms flourish in this introduction to the fungal life cycle.
With a bright palette and vigorous brushwork, illustrator Sudyka portrays exuberant arrays of mushrooms blasting out swirls of spores with a “PUFF!” “PLOP!” “POOF!” or, for the aptly named dog stinkhorn, “PEE-EW!” Then, as author Gianferrari describes how hyphae release enzymes that break down rock and wood into nutrients and minerals—“making / by unmaking”—cross-sectional views reveal underground habitats crowded with roots, rocks, burrowing insects and other wildlife, and fungal threads winding through to create an interactive “wood-wide web.” A second explosion of fruiting bodies, each with an inconspicuous identifying label, leads to a further burst of fungal facts, featuring zombie ants and species that feed on plastic or even (as at Chernobyl) gamma radiation. The author and illustrator stick to land-based species, so marine fungi go unmentioned. Likewise, they draw attention to neither lichens nor (aside from a nod to penicillium) molds, and spores remain just dustlike clouds without any closer looks. Still, readers will come away dazzled by the kingdom’s huge variety of forms and colors, a bit more informed about fungi’s potential uses for industry and waste disposal, and properly warned off from eating any found mushrooms without an expert’s OK. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A bit thin on coverage but exuberant and engaging. (glossary, more information on fungi, diagram of the fungal life cycle, resource lists) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781665903653
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lighthearted and informative, though the premise may be a bit stretched.
An amiable introduction to our thrifty, sociable, teeming insect cousins.
Bunting notes that all the ants on Earth weigh roughly the same as all the people and observes that ants (like, supposedly, us) love recycling, helping others, and taking “micronaps.” They, too, live in groups, and their “superpower” is an ability to work together to accomplish amazing things. Bunting goes on to describe different sorts of ants within the colony (“Drone. Male. Does no housework. Takes to the sky. Reproduces. Drops dead”), how they communicate using pheromones, and how they get from egg to adult. He concludes that we could learn a lot from them that would help us leave our planet in better shape than it was when we arrived. If he takes a pass on mentioning a few less positive shared traits (such as our tendency to wage war on one another), still, his comparisons do invite young readers to observe the natural world more closely and to reflect on our connections to it. In the simple illustrations, generic black ants look up at viewers with little googly eyes while scurrying about the pages gathering food, keeping nests clean, and carrying outsized burdens.
Lighthearted and informative, though the premise may be a bit stretched. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780593567784
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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