This idyllic vision reflects broad agricultural reality about as well as “Old MacDonald.” (Nonfiction. 7-9)
Activities on a generic family farm through the seasons.
In dry, impersonal language Castaldo acknowledges the existence of corporate, monocultural farms but thereafter sticks to a traditional paradigm, with the bland implication that small family farms like the one explored are the sort that really provide us “with the food we eat.” She and Hsu proceed to profile a farm run, in the tidy, bright illustrations, by a white family with two brown-skinned associates or employees (plus some seasonal labor). They are depicted cultivating small crops of organically raised fruits and veggies for local sale, tending an apiary for pollination and honey production, and also raising livestock for milk, eggs (gathered by hand), wool, and/or “meat” (the last of which is never seen butchered or headed for the table or slaughterhouse). The author’s descriptions of organic practices and season-specific activities include looks at limited varieties of common or heirloom breeds and cultivars as well as sidelines like pick-your-own strawberries, and she closes by urging readers toward greener behaviors like buying local and regarding “use by” dates as just guidelines. For a look at small farming today, Nikki Tate’s Down to Earth: How Kids Help Feed the World (2017) is a less systematic but far less parochial alternative.
This idyllic vision reflects broad agricultural reality about as well as “Old MacDonald.” (Nonfiction. 7-9)Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7112-4253-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Words & Pictures
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The sense of wonder that infuses each simply worded chapter is contagious, and some of the photos are soooo cuuuuute.
The author of an adult book about uncommon animal attachments invites emergent readers to share the warm (Unlikely Friendships, 2011).
This is the first of four spinoffs, all rewritten and enhanced with fetching color photographs of the subject. It pairs a very young rhesus monkey with a dove, one cat with a zoo bear and another that became a “seeing-eye cat” for a blind dog (!), an old performing elephant with a stray dog and a lion in the Kenyan wild with a baby oryx. Refreshingly, the author, a science writer, refrains from offering facile analyses of the relationships’ causes or homiletic commentary. Instead, she explains how each companionship began, what is surprising about it and also how some ended, from natural causes or otherwise. There is a regrettable number of exclamation points, but they are in keeping with the overall enthusiastic tone.
The sense of wonder that infuses each simply worded chapter is contagious, and some of the photos are soooo cuuuuute. (animal and word lists) (Nonfiction. 7-9)Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7611-7011-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
The result of this Grammy-nominated harpist’s effort to simplify a complex scientific subject is a medley of environmental...
Pollution, energy use, and simply throwing things away have created a worldwide mess that kids can help clean up with an eight-step action plan.
This well-meant offering introduces the idea of the interconnectedness of human activities and the state of our world. We’re all affected by pollution. Our need for energy results in a variety of current problems: unclean air, melting ice caps, rising sea levels and extreme weather patterns. We should use less. Trash doesn’t vanish; it must be burned or dumped. We should also recycle. This helps save trees, which “eat up pollution.” Colorful, unsophisticated cartoons show a bunny magician who cannot make trash disappear and a diverse array of young people who can. The author’s strong message is undercut by end matter that twice states that “many scientists” consider climate change to be caused by global warming. A National Academy of Sciences survey in 2010 showed an overwhelming consensus: 97 percent. Inspired by her concern for the environment, Kondonassis wrote this when she was unable to find an appropriate book that would explain to her young daughter why she should care. Too bad she missed Kim Michelle Toft’s The World That We Want (2005) or Todd Parr’s The Earth Book (2010).
The result of this Grammy-nominated harpist’s effort to simplify a complex scientific subject is a medley of environmental tweets. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-61608-588-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
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