Information and entertainment in an appealing comic format.
Dr. Cosmic takes his students on an underwater adventure using a specially designed underwater vehicle he calls a SKWID.
McElligott explores the ocean depths in this fourth title in the Mad Scientist Academy series, STEM-friendly science fantasies reminiscent of Ms. Frizzle’s Magic School Bus trips but with less text and a more modern approach. Sequential panels and occasional full-page illustrations, done with ink, pencil, and digital techniques, show red-haired, green-skinned Dr. Cosmic and his species-diverse students: a robot with pageboy hair, a bat-winged vampire, a zombie, a wolflike creature, something reptilian, and something faintly insectoid, characters first introduced in The Dinosaur Disaster (2015). His new assistant, Professor Fathom, is a dark-skinned mermaid with long black hair. Using student questions and an intriguing gadget they call a handbook that unfolds to offer encyclopedialike fast facts and interesting details, the author smoothly weaves solid information into his narrative. He describes sonar and echolocation; how animals get oxygen; food energy, producers and consumers, and the food web; phyto- and zooplankton; toothed and baleen whales; sperm whales and squid. There’s even a reminder of the need for a clean-energy source for their vehicle: Its biofuel is made from seaweed. All these concepts become part of the story, making this tale a surprisingly well-constructed teaching vehicle. Endpaper sketches detail Dr. Cosmic’s latest inventions.
Information and entertainment in an appealing comic format. (more ocean organisms) (Graphic science fantasy. 6-9)Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6719-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book.
Ada Twist’s incessant stream of questions leads to answers that help solve a neighborhood crisis.
Ada conducts experiments at home to answer questions such as, why does Mom’s coffee smell stronger than Dad’s coffee? Each answer leads to another question, another hypothesis, and another experiment, which is how she goes from collecting data on backyard birds for a citizen-science project to helping Rosie Revere figure out how to get her uncle Ned down from the sky, where his helium-filled “perilous pants” are keeping him afloat. The Questioneers—Rosie the engineer, Iggy Peck the architect, and Ada the scientist—work together, asking questions like scientists. Armed with knowledge (of molecules and air pressure, force and temperature) but more importantly, with curiosity, Ada works out a solution. Ada is a recognizable, three-dimensional girl in this delightfully silly chapter book: tirelessly curious and determined yet easily excited and still learning to express herself. If science concepts aren’t completely clear in this romp, relationships and emotions certainly are. In playful full- and half-page illustrations that break up the text, Ada is black with Afro-textured hair; Rosie and Iggy are white. A closing section on citizen science may inspire readers to get involved in science too; on the other hand, the “Ode to a Gas!” may just puzzle them. Other backmatter topics include the importance of bird study and the threat palm-oil use poses to rainforests.
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3422-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Multiple taps transform a giggling block of wood in Geppetto’s workshop into a skinny, loose jointed puppet that suddenly...
Unusually brisk special effects animate this relatively less satiric but equally amusing adaptation of the classic tale.
Multiple taps transform a giggling block of wood in Geppetto’s workshop into a skinny, loose jointed puppet that suddenly delivers a Bronx cheer and then whirls away on a long series of misadventures. These culminate in a final change into a flesh-and-blood boy with help from a fingertip “paintbrush.” Quick and responsive touch- or tilt-activated features range from controllable marionettes, Pinocchio’s tattletale nose and Fire-Eater’s explosive sneeze to a movable candle that illuminates both Geppetto in the fish’s dark belly and the accompanying block of text. Even the thumbnail page images of the index (which opens any time with a shake of the tablet) tumble about, somehow without falling out of order. Though transitions are almost nonexistent in the episodic plot, the text is both substantial enough to have a definite presence and artfully placed in and around Conversi’s brightly colored settings and toylike figures. Text is available in English or Italian with a clear, understated optional audio narration backed by unobtrusive music. A link on the credits page leads to downloadable coloring sheets on the producer’s website.Pub Date: March 17, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Elastico srl
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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