A cleverly open-ended answer to a big question.
A curious child sets out to answer the titular question.
Spread by spread, the young narrator considers different features: feathers, beaks, wings, eggs, the ability to fly, and more. Elementary school teacher and author Pomper demonstrates an understanding of children’s thinking through the questions her protagonist poses and the connections the little one makes. The child considers a variety of beaks, then adds, “I’ve never seen an octopus, but I know it has a beak.” Birds hatch from eggs—but so do snakes and turtles. And some birds can’t fly. Each hypothesis is carefully rejected in turn. The child’s imagination begins to run wild: “Maybe a bird is what comes to mind when you close your eyes and think of a bird.” The youngster’s final conclusion contains a larger lesson: “They can be similar, different, ordinary, unique…and they can all be birds.” The realization that “the bird in your head might not be the same as the bird in mine” will surely be thought-provoking for youngsters. Hoekstra relies on swirling swoops of color in a mostly sand-toned palette, though she also seems to have taken inspiration from the hue of the bluejay, seen in the brown-skinned child’s earrings, scarf, bracelet, sandals, and hair. The birds and other creatures shown are clearly identifiable. The creators add interest by challenging readers to find and name the 34 different species shown, using a key on the last spread.
A cleverly open-ended answer to a big question. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781771476133
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on.
Sharpson offers so-fish-ticated readers a heads up about the true terror of the seas.
The title says it all. Our unseen narrator is just fine with other animals: mammals. Reptiles. Even birds. But fish? Don’t trust them! First off, the rules always seem to change with fish. Some live in fresh water; some reside in salt water. Some have gills, while others have lungs. You can never see what they’re up to, since they hang out underwater, and they’re always eating those poor, innocent crabs. Soon, the narrator introduces readers to Jeff, a vacant-eyed yellow fish—but don’t be fooled! Jeff’s “the craftiest fish of all.” All fish are, apparently, hellbent on world domination, the narrator warns. “DON’T TRUST FISH!” Finally, at the tail end, we get a sly glimpse of our unreliable narrator. Readers needn’t be ichthyologists to appreciate Sharpson’s meticulous comic timing. (“Ships always sink at sea. They never sink on land. Isn’t that strange?”) His delightful text, filled to the brim with jokes that read aloud brilliantly, pairs perfectly with Santat’s art, which shifts between extreme realism and goofy hilarity. He also fills the book with his own clever gags (such as an image of Gilligan’s Island’s S.S. Minnow going down and a bottle of sauce labeled “Surly Chik’n Srir’racha’r”).
A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780593616673
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
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