A fascinating step-by-step descent into the still largely unexplored "living minestrone" in which our planet is enfolded,...
Well-designed digital bells and whistles boost Johnson's already first-rate print dive past marine biology's frontiers (2010) to the next level.
Paired to quick glimpses of scientists engaged in the worldwide, decade-long Census of Marine Life, the select array of newly-identified copepods, jellyfish, sea cucumbers, "squidworms" and other exotic denizens of both shallows and deeps look even more eldritch and alien on the screen. The author's second-person address places readers directly into the adventure: "Scrunched inside a submersible that has just passed 1,476 feet (450 meters), you’re descending through a dark world few people have seen." Two videos (one a lively intro by the author, the other more than six minutes long, which accounts for the app's unusual size) and slide shows join a great array of large, sharply detailed photos—many of which are eye widening close-ups. Photo captions have been moved behind tappable icons to give the pages a spacious look, and the chapters are "stacked" to make both horizontal and vertical navigation positively pleasurable. Live links to web sites and online articles punctuate the closing resource lists.
A fascinating step-by-step descent into the still largely unexplored "living minestrone" in which our planet is enfolded, with special features that enhance rather than distract. (iPad informational app. 10-13)Pub Date: May 31, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Lerner
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
A rich and deeply felt slice of life.
Crafting fantasy worlds offers a budding middle school author relief and distraction from the real one in this graphic memoir debut.
Everyone in Tori’s life shows realistic mixes of vulnerability and self-knowledge while, equally realistically, seeming to be making it up as they go. At least, as she shuttles between angrily divorced parents—dad becoming steadily harder to reach, overstressed mom spectacularly incapable of reading her offspring—or drifts through one wearingly dull class after another, she has both vivacious bestie Taylor Lee and, promisingly, new classmate Nick as well as the (all-girl) heroic fantasy, complete with portals, crystal amulets, and evil enchantments, taking shape in her mind and on paper. The flow of school projects, sleepovers, heart-to-heart conversations with Taylor, and like incidents (including a scene involving Tori’s older brother, who is having a rough adolescence, that could be seen as domestic violence) turns to a tide of change as eighth grade winds down and brings unwelcome revelations about friends. At least the story remains as solace and, at the close, a sense that there are still chapters to come in both worlds. Working in a simple, expressive cartoon style reminiscent of Raina Telgemeier’s, Sharp captures facial and body language with easy naturalism. Most people in the spacious, tidily arranged panels are White; Taylor appears East Asian, and there is diversity in background characters.
A rich and deeply felt slice of life. (afterword, design notes) (Graphic memoir. 10-13)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-53889-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
The story of one of the world’s oldest religions is folded into an overview of world history. Influential in at least two other great religions, Christianity and Islam, Judaism and its people have also been affected by the events and evolving beliefs and perceptions of numerous leaders throughout the past. Lefcourt offers a sound introduction with a combination of cartoon drawings broken into several panels on each page against pale blue backdrops with an easy-to-read, flowing text to relate the world’s historical highlights in short-story–style segments. General facts, important dates, people, events, maps, a timeline and puzzles are woven into the long Jewish history with yellow highlighted passages to point out specific episodes, consequences, incidents and even outcomes related to the Jewish people. From the Ten Commandments to the Fall of the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, Europe’s Renaissance, the beginnings of Zionism, the Holocaust, American Judaism and modern Israel to the unknown future, this volume leaves readers with an understanding that the past is an important reminder for Jews, who will always move forward with hope and determination. (Nonfiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-60280-132-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: KTAV
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2010
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