Harris and Emberley fill the gap between their picture book, Happy Birth Day (1996), and the instant-classic It’s Perfectly Normal (1994) with this equally sensitive, good-humored take on love and sex, puberty, genetics, pregnancy, and related topics, from sibling rivalry to HIV. Emberley supplies side (and snide) commentary from an eager bird and a reluctant bee to go along with cartoon depictions of anatomical details, human figures in a marvelous variety of ages, shapes, and skin colors, and a dramatic sequence covering fetal development from one month to nine in actual size. Never talking down to readers, Harris takes wide-angled views of sexual preferences, birth control, and the meaning of “family,” while making the terminology less forbidding by mixing it with familiar comparisons: “The epididymis is a long, twisty, coiled tube. It is shaped somewhat like a telephone receiver, but smaller.” The collaborators expertly walk the line between frankness and bluntness, keeping the actual sex act under the covers, and nimbly explaining how abuse differs from normal human contact and affection. Closing on a cheery note with a look at new baby customs in several parts of the world, this provides sensible, reassuring answers to readers’ questions and concerns, and interrupts the rain of information with occasional silliness. (index) (Nonfiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7636-0051-2
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
IN THE NEWS
Substandard nonfiction series fare, aimed at a slightly older audience than the publisher’s Kingfisher Young Knowledge entry...
This haphazard jumble of military, domestic, space, toy and industrial robots is unlikely to draw young technophiles for more than a quick once-over.
The design is dizzying: Crammed over and around pictures of robots in visually overstuffed mixes and even composites of photographic and photorealistic digital elements, scattered blocks of text in different point sizes extol the range of robotic capabilities. Robots that are actually functional now are not differentiated from those still in the experimental or concept stages, and the commentary is often misleading—“To communicate feelings, androids have mechanisms in their heads”—or too vague to be meaningful: “Robot animals move in the same way as real animals”; “The ultimate medical robots operate on human patients.” These and many other statements cry out for explanation and clarification. Some readers may find the pervasive focus on robots with cute features, from Sega’s “Dream Cat Venus” to a Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot (BEAR) that sports little ursine ears, off-putting, if not downright creepy. Furthermore, there are no source notes or leads to further information.
Substandard nonfiction series fare, aimed at a slightly older audience than the publisher’s Kingfisher Young Knowledge entry on the topic (2003) but a clean miss. (Nonfiction. 8-10)Pub Date: July 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7534-6816-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kingfisher
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Cogent statistics and topic somewhat diluted by a simplistic presentation.
An exploration of our “water footprint” in infographics, with suggestions for reducing it.
Rows of water bottles or jugs give visual expression to the amount of fresh water consumed in various everyday activities or required to produce a series of common foods and other items. The numbers, all given in metric and English units, are startling: a disposable diaper requires 545 liters (or 144 gallons), for instance; a pair of jeans takes 7,600 liters (2,000 gallons); producing a smartphone consumes 910 liters (240 gallons); a single spaghetti noodle requires 1.85 liters (roughly a half gallon). Sources for these figures aren’t specified but presumably come from the technical reports that make up the bibliography. In any case, they speak for themselves—which is good, as the introductory narrative and accompanying commentary run to broad generalities (“In school, we learn that people in places like Africa do not have enough water”). The “Water-Saving Tips” at the end not only address adults and children indiscriminately, but even if rigorously adopted will result in, at best, minor local reductions in water use. A cast of white or light-skinned children add shiny faces to the bright, clean layouts.
Cogent statistics and topic somewhat diluted by a simplistic presentation. (index, bibliography) (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77085-819-0
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
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