The authors open with a few pages of general advice on good locations for plants, pots, choices of soil, feeding and...
British-flavored step-by-step instructions, along with useful, sometimes humorous illustrations, encourage beginning gardeners to raise some rather bizarre plants.
The authors open with a few pages of general advice on good locations for plants, pots, choices of soil, feeding and watering, sowing seeds, transplanting seedlings and constructing a variety of mini-greenhouses from household materials. Subsequent sections cover a variety of unusual plants: squirting cucumber, voodoo lily, Abyssinian banana, cardoon, walking stick cabbage, Venus fly trap, pitcher plant, giant echium and lychee. There are close-up color photographs of the plants, and attractive cartoon illustrations demonstrate some of the key gardening techniques. Unfortunately, the text fails to mention that the squirting cucumber is poisonous and the giant echium can cause skin reactions in those that touch it, particularly troublesome since the photo in that section shows a boy grabbing it. The cardoon is considered a “noxious weed” in California; the text merely cautions that in some places, cardoon “can spread their seeds around and grow all over the place,” and should not be allowed to go to seed in those areas. Additionally, the described propagation difficulties of some of these plants may discourage many. A plant source follows, including nurseries in Europe and North America, as well as a glossary.Pub Date: July 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-84507-833-1
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
Come for the mystery, stay for the backmatter.
This gentle, fast-paced mystery will hook readers with interesting details.
Julieta Leal, 9, is a magnet for disasters. She has a reputation at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, where both her parents work, for making trouble. Julieta is just trying to help, and it’s not her fault that sometimes things get broken or she has a hard time following the rules. When Julieta’s dad invites her along on a trip to Paris regarding the loan of some pieces from the Louvre, she jumps at the chance to add another purple pin to her family’s world-travel map. She promises to be helpful and stay out of trouble and desperately wants to shed her reputation of being a liability. This proves difficult when the dazzling Regent Diamond is stolen and Julieta and her dad are implicated in the theft. With her dad’s job in peril and the prized gem missing, Julieta must rely on her keen observations and tenacity to clear their names. Detailed descriptions of Paris landmarks and factual information about museum pieces are woven naturally into the fast-moving plot so that readers come away with knowledge of these topics alongside a satisfying story. Several pages of backmatter notes bolster the learning. The endearing Julieta is bilingual, and she and her family are Mexican American.
Come for the mystery, stay for the backmatter. (glossaries) (Mystery. 8-11)Pub Date: June 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64379-046-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Tu Books
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Yasmin’s campaign should help inspire young readers to believe in their own potential to make a difference and teach the...
When her source of books is threatened, so is 9-year-old Yasmin’s goal of reading a book a day “forever.”
The inspiration behind and assistant to her in that goal is Book Uncle, owner of a free lending library on the street corner where she lives. His motto is to provide the “right book for the right person for the right day.” When Book Uncle is forced to shut down his lending library because he can’t afford the permit, Yasmin is disappointed and confused. She is then motivated to try and get the lending library back in business and enlists the help of her friends and then their larger neighborhood. All this happens amid a mayoral election, which provides the perfect background for the plot. Yasmin is a precocious, inquisitive protagonist with a tendency to speak before she thinks. Her relationships with her family and friends read as authentic and loving, even, and perhaps especially, in the moments when they are not perfect. This all lays the foundation for the community organizing that later becomes so necessary in effecting the change that Yasmin seeks to make. Swaney’s playful, childlike illustrations advance the action and help to bring Yasmin’s Indian city to life.
Yasmin’s campaign should help inspire young readers to believe in their own potential to make a difference and teach the valuable lesson that sometimes it takes several small actions to make big moves. (Fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-55498-808-2
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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