Like the rest of the series, charming, informative, and effective.
In his fourth book exploring “seriously funny facts about your favorite animals,” Eaton delivers “tons of information” about elephants.
Each spread provides essential and engaging facts on subtopics such as habitat, anatomy, diet, family structure, and behavior. One particularly effective spread shows the physiological differences between Asian elephants and African elephants, using arrows to point out differences between their trunks, toenails, ears, backs, and heads. With levity that never feels flippant, Eaton acknowledges that elephants’ “biggest threat wears shoes” and devotes a spread to the many different ways humans threaten elephants’ survival. The next spread encourages readers to consider ways that they can effect change: “The threats are enormous, but you can begin to help by reading about elephants, and then teaching others and speaking out. / Because elephants are worth it!” Excellent pacing and design result in a compelling read enhanced by digitally colored pen-and-ink cartoon illustrations filled with bold lines and bright colors. Talking animals and a brown-skinned child with a curly black ponytail provide light commentary on the facts presented in the main text, and readers may particularly enjoy the jazz (and joke) trio made up of the elephant’s closest living relatives. The final spread contains a dossier of illustrated photographs and notes and a list of additional resources for “calves” and “cows and bulls.”
Like the rest of the series, charming, informative, and effective. (Informational picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62672-669-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet and endearing feathered migration.
A relationship between a Latina grandmother and her mixed-race granddaughter serves as the frame to depict the ruby-throated hummingbird migration pattern.
In Granny’s lap, a girl is encouraged to “keep still” as the intergenerational pair awaits the ruby-throated hummingbirds with bowls of water in their hands. But like the granddaughter, the tz’unun—“the word for hummingbird in several [Latin American] languages”—must soon fly north. Over the next several double-page spreads, readers follow the ruby-throated hummingbird’s migration pattern from Central America and Mexico through the United States all the way to Canada. Davies metaphorically reunites the granddaughter and grandmother when “a visitor from Granny’s garden” crosses paths with the girl in New York City. Ray provides delicately hashed lines in the illustrations that bring the hummingbirds’ erratic flight pattern to life as they travel north. The watercolor palette is injected with vibrancy by the addition of gold ink, mirroring the hummingbirds’ flashing feathers in the slants of light. The story is supplemented by notes on different pages with facts about the birds such as their nest size, diet, and flight schedule. In addition, a note about ruby-throated hummingbirds supplies readers with detailed information on how ornithologists study and keep track of these birds.
A sweet and endearing feathered migration. (bibliography, index) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0538-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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