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
The story feels a bit contrived, but Ada will be a welcome addition to the small circle of science-loving girls in the...
Using science and technology, third-grader Ada Lace kicks off her new series by solving a mystery even with her leg in a cast.
Temporarily housebound after a badly executed bungee jump, Ada uses binoculars to document the ecosystem of her new neighborhood in San Francisco. She records her observations in a field journal, a project that intrigues new friend Nina, who lives nearby. When they see that Ms. Reed’s dog, Marguerite, is missing, they leap to the conclusion that it has been stolen. Nina does the legwork and Ada provides the technology for their search for the dognapper. Story-crafting takes a back seat to scene-setting in this series kickoff that introduces the major players. As part of the series formula, science topics and gadgetry are integrated into the stories and further explained in a “Behind the Science” afterword. This installment incorporates drones, a wireless camera, gecko gloves, and the Turing test as well as the concept of an ecosystem. There are no ethnic indicators in the text, but the illustrations reveal that Ada, her family, and bratty neighbor Milton are white; Nina appears to be Southeast Asian; and Mr. Peebles, an inventor who lives nearby, is black.
The story feels a bit contrived, but Ada will be a welcome addition to the small circle of science-loving girls in the chapter-book world. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8599-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so...
A pro bono Twinkie of a book invites readers to fly off in a magic plane to bring clean water to our planet’s oceans, deserts, and brown children.
Following a confusingly phrased suggestion beneath a soft-focus world map to “touch the Earth. Now touch where you live,” a shake of the volume transforms it into a plane with eyes and feathered wings that flies with the press of a flat, gray “button” painted onto the page. Pressing like buttons along the journey releases a gush of fresh water from the ground—and later, illogically, provides a filtration device that changes water “from yucky to clean”—for thirsty groups of smiling, brown-skinned people. At other stops, a tap on the button will “help irrigate the desert,” and touching floating bottles and other debris in the ocean supposedly makes it all disappear so the fish can return. The 20 children Coh places on a globe toward the end are varied of skin tone, but three of the four young saviors she plants in the flier’s cockpit as audience stand-ins are white. The closing poem isn’t so openly parochial, though it seldom rises above vague feel-good sentiments: “Love the Earth, the moon and sun. / All the children can be one.”
“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so easy to clean the place up and give everyone a drink? (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5107-2083-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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