A stunning and unforgettable journey.
Every year, the Pacific Northwest’s Salish Sea becomes a pit stop on one of nature’s most majestic migrations.
Leaving Baja California each February, 20,000 gray whales embark on a monthslong journey to the Arctic, where they spend each summer feasting on shrimp and growing strong. The migration is arduous; the whales eat almost nothing along the way and lose one-third of their body weight. Among the travelers are 12 whales with a sense of adventure, willing to risk a detour with the promise of a valuable payoff. Sometimes called the Sounders, these whales break off from the group each year at the tip of Washington State and enter the great network of waterways called the Salish Sea. Their 170-mile detour leads them to shorelines so shallow that whales who don’t pay attention to the outgoing tide are at risk of being stranded. Here they scrape great heaps of ghost shrimp from the sea floor, leaving behind giant pits in the sand that are visible when the tide turns. The Sounders eat hundreds of pounds of shrimp during their short stay in the Salish Sea before continuing their journey to the Arctic, bellies full. Nickum’s quiet, flowing prose sets the scene with vivid, sensory detail. MacKay’s captivating ink and paper illustrations were layered and enhanced with wire, colored filters, and light and then photographed for a glowing and serene three-dimensional effect. The speckled whales seem ready to splash off the page in each dioramic scene.
A stunning and unforgettable journey. (more information on the whales, suggested reading) (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2026
ISBN: 9781536234701
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: today
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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