Readers who know the definition of “vexillologist” may be the target audience, but even people with no interest in geography...
Flags elicit complex emotions, and so will this celebration of flags around the globe.
Flags are often records of conquest or colonization. Many of them feature the Union Jack, as a reminder that the British Empire once ruled almost a quarter of the world. It’s a poignant detail, and it’s also led to flags that look as if they were designed by a committee. The Union Jack, for example, throws together symbols from England, Scotland, and Ireland. Some readers may find themselves longing for the flag of Brunei, which, for generations, was a plain yellow rectangle. Fresson doesn’t judge. The book has been laid out so skillfully that even the busiest flag looks beautiful. In a few cases, the images in the background mirror the colors of the flags; the Greek flag is in front of a pale blue seascape, for instance. There’s a surprising amount of drama in the book. Afghanistan, he notes, has gone through so many upheavals that its flag has changed 21 times. There’s even a bit of humor, or at least whimsy. Tiny figures dressed in primary colors (with brown skin) manually assemble the different icons that make up each flag. They look like little cheerleaders or superheroes, though he calls them the Vexillologists. The book does not try for comprehensiveness and avoids current controversy (the flag of Tibet is not on display, for instance); its organization by design rather than geography makes it ideal for browsing.
Readers who know the definition of “vexillologist” may be the target audience, but even people with no interest in geography might find themselves entertained and even a little tearful. (Nonfiction. 6-12)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-908714-46-6
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Cicada Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Valuable both for its broad range and shivery appeal.
A mix of 32 timeless chillers and personal encounters with the supernatural gathered from Native American storytellers and traditions.
Carefully acknowledging his oral, online, and print sources (and appending lists of additional ones), Jones (Ponca) intersperses his own anecdotes and retellings with accounts by others collected in his travels. The generally brief entries are gathered into types, from brushes with ghosts or spirits (the latter distinguished by having “more complex agendas” than the former) to witches and monsters. In them, the tone ranges from mild eeriness—hearing an elder relative on the porch just moments after she died and seeing small footprints appear in wet concrete near the burial ground of an abandoned Oklahoma boarding school—to terrifying glimpses of were-owls, were-otters, a malign walking doll, and a giant water serpent with a “sinister smile.” They all join the more familiar (in children’s books, anyway) likes of Bigfoot and La Llorona. Linked to a broad diversity of traditions spanning the North American continent, the stories, both old—there’s one ascribed to the ancient Mississippian culture—and those given recent, even modern settings, are related in matter-of-fact language that underscores a common sense of how close the natural and supernatural worlds are. In sometimes-intricate ink drawings, Alvitre (Tongva) amps the creepiness by alternating depictions of everyday items with grinning skulls, heaps of bones, and the odd floating head.
Valuable both for its broad range and shivery appeal. (introductory notes) (Traditional literature. 8-11)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-68160-4
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Scholastic Nonfiction
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
The author of When Bugs Were Big, Plants Were Strange, and Tetrapods Stalked the Earth (2003) continues her droll but dependable tour of deep prehistory, focusing here on the flora, fauna and fungi of the Silurian and Devonian Periods, approximately 360 to 44 million years ago. This was the time when larger forms of life began to emerge on land, while, among the far richer variety of marine animals, fish wriggled to the top, thanks to newly developed jaws which allowed them “to say good-bye to a monotonous diet of teensy stuff. Now fish could grab, slice and dice to their heart’s content.” By the end, soil, forests and, of course, feet had also appeared. Fearlessly folding in tongue-challenging names and mixing simply drawn reconstructions and maps with goofy flights of fancy—on the first spread Robin Mite and Friar Millipede are caught on a stroll through Sherwood Moss Patch, and on the last, genial nautiloid Amphicyrtoceras plugs the previous volume—Bonner serves up a second heaping course of science that will both stick to the ribs and tickle them. (index, resource lists, time line) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4263-0078-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
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