A tigress raises two cubs in this brief, poetic picture book that lends itself equally well to a read-aloud or independent reading. Sensuous present-tense text presents the tigress as mother, hunter, and, above all, force of nature. Chapman’s bright, full-bleed acrylics make the most of the text, lush spreads giving equal weight to beauty and savagery (a stop-motion kill is most effective), the primary type set against faint paisley patterns that move in and out of the jungle background. Italicized snippets provide hard facts that supplement the more emotive narrative: “[The cubs] are too small to walk far, so the tigress uses tooth power” is glossed by, “Tiger cubs have loose skin on their necks, which makes them easy to lift.” The whole takes itself seriously as nonfiction, an index (with a little lesson in how to use it) providing access to the paged text that precedes it. A brief author’s note gives a few more facts about tigers and their current endangered status today, and it is, refreshingly, as easy for primary graders to read as the main narrative. A lovely, solid package. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-8)
Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-7636-2325-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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