A brief but lively episode for young STEM pullers, easily bearing a substantial informational load.
A young sleuth observes and reasons his way to the true nature of an apparent UFO.
His mom may claim that “not everything can be explained with logic and reason,” but those tools serve 10-year-old Art well—whether the mystery involves missing chocolate kisses (“The evidence was right there on my dad’s face”) or the weird purple blotch that swims into view when he aims his telescope at the night sky. True, the latter sight does have him and his three friends covering the garage windows, “shoving” peanut butter in their ears to ward off hypnotic voices (“It works better than cotton”), and calling the police. Amid the ruckus, though, Art suddenly notices that the blotch is in the same position no matter where the telescope points…and with a wet wipe solves the mystery. Along the way, the author slips in references to some constellations, a mnemonic phrase to keep the planets in order, and other useful bits of knowledge. Art even steps out between each chapter to deliver brief lectures, and an epilogue offers young stargazers leads to further information about Galileo and the constellations. The figures in Wyrick’s illustrations, though immobile of face and artificial of pose, do add some diversity by casting Robbie as black and Jason as a boy of color; Art and Amy are white.
A brief but lively episode for young STEM pullers, easily bearing a substantial informational load. (Mystery. 9-11)Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61117-935-4
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Young Palmetto Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
From McDonald (Tundra Mouse, 1997, etc.), a haunting, dramatic glimpse of the Bone Keeper, a trickster with special transformational powers. Some say Bone Woman is a ghost; some envision her with three heads that view past, present, and future simultaneously. Most, however, call her the “Skeleton Maker” or “Keeper of Bones.” Chanting, shaking, moaning, and wailing, the Bone Keeper is frenzied as she sorts bones; not until the end of the book are readers told, in murmuring lines of free verse, what the Bone Keeper is creating in her mysterious desert cave. Out of the darkness, a wolf springs to life, leaps from the cave, howling, a symbol of resurrection and proof of life’s cyclical nature. Also keeping readers guessing as to the Bone Keeper’s final creation are Karas’s paintings; they, too, require that the final piece of the puzzle be placed before all are understood. The coloring and textures embody the desert setting in the evening, showing the fearsome cave and sandy shadows that wait to release the mystery of the bones. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7894-2559-9
Page Count: 30
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
Peddle debuts with a small, wordless epiphany that flows like an animated short. A low winter sun first lights a child building a snowman, then, after a gloriously starry night, returns to transform it—to melt it. Leaving most of each page untouched, Peddle assembles a minimum of accurately brushed pictorial elements for each scene: the builder; the snow figure; their lengthening shadows; the rising sun’s coruscating circle in the penultimate picture; a scatter of sticks, coal, and a carrot in the final one. Most children will still prefer The Snowy Day, but others may find layers of meaning beneath the story’s deceptive simplicity. (Picture book. 4-9)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-385-32693-9
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
