Apprentice work at best, definitely not ready for prime time.
Amateur production design and underwhelming interactive features only underscore the unusual superficiality of this planetary once-over.
The text and narration can be set at any time to any of five languages plus British or American English, but the good news ends there. Read at a deliberate pace by a narrator who cannot be switched off, the wordy tale endows two 7-year-old twins with a magic globe. It takes them down to the Earth’s core (which Andy somehow spots through solid rock even before they arrive) and up into orbit, where Alice points out features that are not visible on the planet below. In response to a wish to see “different animals,” it deposits them near a camel in an unspecified desert and then in the ocean, where an anglerfish somehow shares its deep-sea habitat with coral, algae and a whale (all of which are also unseen in the illustration). They then travel to a snowy scene into which a polar bear and an Inuit lad slide slowly and rigidly after a few moments. A final wish gathers three children “from all around the world” in casual western dress, plus the Inuit in furs, to share a birthday cake. Consonant with the monotonous background music, wooden writing, scientific misinformation and disconnects between text and pictures, finger taps will make labels appear, and some figures can be induced to move a few inches or blink almost invisibly.
Apprentice work at best, definitely not ready for prime time. (iPad informational app. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
Another playful imagination-stretcher.
Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.
As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.
Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781339049052
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
