An intriguing topic, presented in animated verse.
A cheery explainer for younger readers a bit hazy on the differences between animals like turtles and tortoises, or crocs and gators.
“Pretty close. / But not the same,” goes the refrain as Fleming pairs and compares several sets of “confusable critters.” Some of the physical features she points to, such as the differently shaped snouts of dolphins and porpoises, may not be immediately discernable in real life, but Stilwell makes them prominent in her simplified figures. And even untrained eyes should have no trouble telling striped tigers apart from spotted leopards or monkeys from apes (only monkeys have tails, after all). The entry distinguishing bison from true buffalo should be a particular revelation for American readers of any age accustomed to using the two terms interchangeably. Though Fleming limits herself to only seven pairs of animals, her bouncy rhyme and clear, comprehensible content give the book a leg up over Karen Jameson and Lorna Scobie’s A Llama Is Not an Alpaca (2023). For budding zoologists with a newly kindled interest in the topic, it also serves nicely as a lead-in to Lucy Thorn and Lucy Rose’s broader and more detailed Tell Us Apart (2024).
An intriguing topic, presented in animated verse. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781665978996
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
Enticing and eco-friendly.
Why and how to make a rain garden.
Having watched through their classroom window as a “rooftop-rushing, gutter-gushing” downpour sloppily flooded their streets and playground, several racially diverse young children follow their tan-skinned teacher outside to lay out a shallow drainage ditch beneath their school’s downspout, which leads to a patch of ground, where they plant flowers (“native ones with tough, thick roots,” Schaub specifies) to absorb the “mucky runoff” and, in time, draw butterflies and other wildlife. The author follows up her lilting rhyme with more detailed explanations of a rain garden’s function and construction, including a chart to help determine how deep to make the rain garden and a properly cautionary note about locating a site’s buried utility lines before starting to dig; she concludes with a set of leads to online information sources. Gómez goes more for visual appeal than realism. In her scenes, a group of smiling, round-headed, very small children in rain gear industriously lay large stones along a winding border with little apparent effort; nevertheless, her images of the little ones planting generic flowers that are tall and lush just a page turn later do make the outdoorsy project look like fun.
Enticing and eco-friendly. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781324052357
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another feather in McCloskey’s cap.
Budding naturalists who dug We Dig Worms! (2015) will, well, coo over this similarly enlightening accolade.
A curmudgeonly park visitor’s “They’re RATS with wings!” sparks spirited rejoinders from a racially diverse flock of children wearing full-body bird outfits, who swoop down to deliver a mess of pigeon facts. Along with being related to the dodo, “rock doves” fly faster than a car, mate for life, have been crossbred into all sorts of “fancies,” inspired Pablo Picasso to name his daughter “Paloma” in their honor, can be eaten (“Tastes like chicken”), and, like penguins and flamingos, create “pigeon milk” in their crops for their hatchlings. Painted on light blue art paper—“the kind,” writes McCloskey in his afterword, “used by Picasso”—expertly depicted pigeons of diverse breeds common and fancy strut their stuff, with views of the children and other wild creatures, plus occasional helpful labels, interspersed. In the chastened parkgoer’s eyes, as in those of the newly independent readers to whom this is aimed, the often maligned birds are “wonderful.” Cue a fresh set of costumed children on the final page, gearing up to set him straight on squirrels.
Another feather in McCloskey’s cap. (Graphic informational early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-935179-93-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: TOON Books & Graphics
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
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