This striking book and its companion will be welcome in schools and homes where language is a focus. (Informational picture...
Like its companion title, A Drove of Bullocks (2011), this compendium of collective nouns for 20 different animal groups is imaginatively illustrated with visual plays on the words and accompanied by short, relevant descriptions and realistic silhouettes.
Drove covers mostly mammals and insects; Filth includes birds and aquatic animals. The two titles work well as a pair. These are all genuine words, ranging from the familiar “flock of geese” (though the flocked wallpaper background may be a puzzle) to the unusual “smack of jellyfish.” The spare images are set on double-page spreads. Author-designers Peter and Ann Scott, working as PatrickGeorge, make liberal use of silhouettes and only a few intense colors per image. Some are beautiful, like the “kaleidoscope of butterflies,” and many are gently humorous, like the “pod of dolphins” wearing iPods and earbuds. The “murder of crows” carries weapons from a Clue game. The short descriptive paragraphs explain the group name. In one unfortunate lapse, the authors refer to a stingray’s venomous tail; actually, it’s only a small barb on the tail. A few Briticisms in these titles, first published in England in 2009, may puzzle American readers, but they add to the language interest.
This striking book and its companion will be welcome in schools and homes where language is a focus. (Informational picture book. 8-14)Pub Date: June 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-9562558-1-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: PatrickGeorge/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2011
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant.
Robot Roz undertakes an unusual ocean journey to save her adopted island home in this third series entry.
When a poison tide flowing across the ocean threatens their island, Roz works with the resident creatures to ensure that they will have clean water, but the destruction of vegetation and crowding of habitats jeopardize everyone’s survival. Brown’s tale of environmental depredation and turmoil is by turns poignant, graceful, endearing, and inspiring, with his (mostly) gentle robot protagonist at its heart. Though Roz is different from the creatures she lives with or encounters—including her son, Brightbill the goose, and his new mate, Glimmerwing—she makes connections through her versatile communication abilities and her desire to understand and help others. When Roz accidentally discovers that the replacement body given to her by Dr. Molovo is waterproof, she sets out to seek help and discovers the human-engineered source of the toxic tide. Brown’s rich descriptions of undersea landscapes, entertaining conversations between Roz and wild creatures, and concise yet powerful explanations of the effect of the poison tide on the ecology of the island are superb. Simple, spare illustrations offer just enough glimpses of Roz and her surroundings to spark the imagination. The climactic confrontation pits oceangoing mammals, seabirds, fish, and even zooplankton against hardware and technology in a nicely choreographed battle. But it is Roz’s heroism and peacemaking that save the day.
Hugely entertaining, timely, and triumphant. (author’s note) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9780316669412
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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