Children will be swept up in Wesley’s vision, and have a fine time visiting Weslandia. An alphabet appears on the endpapers.
Wearing purple sneakers and a bemused expression, Wesley knows he’s an outcast: he dislikes pizza, soda, and football, and fleeing his tormentors is “the only sport he was good at.”
When he learns that each civilization has its own staple food crop, he takes as his summer project turning over a plot of ground in the back yard, and seeds brought by the wind begin to grow. Wesley can’t find the plants in any book, but the fruit and the juice are delicious, as are the tubers on the roots. He makes a hat from the bark and a robe from the inner fibers, and sells the seed oil to his former enemies as a suntan lotion/mosquito repellent. It isn’t long before he’s moved out to the yard, and invents an alphabet and a whole raft of sports for the place he calls Weslandia. In sumptuously detailed illustrations, Hawkes has vividly imagined Fleischman’s puckish text, capturing both the blandness of Wesley’s suburban surroundings and then the fabulous encroachment of the rainforest-like vegetation of his green and growing place.
Children will be swept up in Wesley’s vision, and have a fine time visiting Weslandia. An alphabet appears on the endpapers. (Picture book 5-9)Pub Date: June 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7636-0006-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1999
BOOK TO SCREEN
No red—but lots of tooth and claw on display.
Face-to-face introductions to over two dozen creatures it would be better to avoid.
Labeling each predator as either extinct or modern-day, Jenkins arranges his paper-collage portraits—most of them rendered, as usual, with seemingly miraculous realism—in no readily obvious order. Starting off with the cruel-beaked “terror bird” (extinct) of South America and toothy views of a gaping Siberian tiger and T. Rex, he proceeds past African wild dogs (“some of the most successful predators on earth, with nine out of ten hunts ending in a kill”), the electric eel, killer pig Daedon, 48-foot-long (14.5 m) Titanoboa, and like threats to the spiderlike Trigonotarbid, just an inch long (2.5 cm) but 400 million years ago one of the largest predators on land. Then, in true browser-rousing fashion, he proposes several matchups, like the Siberian tiger vs. Utahraptor. Place your bets! Each creature comes with descriptive notes and a small silhouette posed next to a human (“The deadliest predator”) for scale. Measurements for each creature are provided in first English and then metric units. The bibliography includes an unremarkable assortment of reference works and websites.
No red—but lots of tooth and claw on display. (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-544-67160-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
For exciting, optimal use, expect brown-edged pages.
Readers are encouraged to find a worm and to employ careful observation techniques.
Immediately after the title page, a bespectacled worm wearing a blue scarf—it acts as commentator throughout—reminds readers to be gentle when picking up worms and to return them safely to their places of origin after studying them. (Environmentally conscious endnotes both suggest acquiring a worm from a bait shop if one is not available outside and caution against introducing these worms into the natural environment.) Two children, one black and one white, look out toward readers as if hearing the words printed above them: “Stop! To read this book you are going to need a worm.” Indeed, without a worm in hand, half of the text becomes moot. Readers—along with the two children—are urged to run a finger along the worm’s body; to stare into the worm’s “face”; to carefully observe worm sensitivities to alcohol fumes and light beams; to listen for the bristles called setae by holding up a paper-wrapped worm to an ear; to create a one-night, dirt-filled worm hotel in a clear plastic bottle. For a book that seems otherwise eco-conscious, it is a surprise that a glass jar used with care is not recommended over plastic. As the gently humorous text gives directions and nature facts, the whimsical worm’s speech bubbles offer vocabulary pronunciations and tips about keeping worms healthy while they are under surveillance. The graphic art is lively and colorful, well matched with the text.
For exciting, optimal use, expect brown-edged pages. (resources, research notes) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: March 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-58089-897-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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