Should come with a cautionary note: sunglasses a must! (Nonfiction. 7-12)
All that glitters.
Opening with a blinding, nearly life-size picture of the U.K.’s jewel-encrusted St. Edward’s crown, this fulsome gallery of shiny extravagance encompasses both manufactured treasures and natural wonders. Among the former are King Tut’s golden mask and the fantastically expensive International Space Station, and the latter range from birthstones and gloriously iridescent insects on to Omega Centauri, the biggest star cluster in our galaxy. To the photos, most of which are close-ups processed for maximum color intensity, Davidson adds general descriptive notes—extolling each one’s magnificence but also adding historical, biological, or geological background. Occasional featurettes explain how to tell gold from pyrite, for instance, or real from imitation pearls. Young dreamers with a taste for over-the-top toys, pets, film props (ruby slippers, anyone?), foreign currency, or food won’t be disappointed either. “Bling is all around us,” the author writes. Maybe so…but rarely is the razzle-dazzle this cranked up.
Should come with a cautionary note: sunglasses a must! (Nonfiction. 7-12)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4263-3531-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: National Geographic Kids
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe.
An introduction to gravity.
The book opens with the most iconic demonstration of gravity, an apple falling. Throughout, Herz tackles both huge concepts—how gravity compresses atoms to form stars and how black holes pull all kinds of matter toward them—and more concrete ones: how gravity allows you to jump up and then come back down to the ground. Gravity narrates in spare yet lyrical verse, explaining how it creates planets and compresses atoms and comparing itself to a hug. “My embrace is tight enough that you don’t float like a balloon, but loose enough that you can run and leap and play.” Gravity personifies itself at times: “I am stubborn—the bigger things are, the harder I pull.” Beautiful illustrations depict swirling planets and black holes alongside racially diverse children playing, running, and jumping, all thanks to gravity. Thorough backmatter discusses how Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity and explains Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. While at times Herz’s explanations may be a bit too technical for some readers, burgeoning scientists will be drawn in.
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668936849
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
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A quick flight but a blast from first to last.
A charged-up roundup of astro-facts.
Having previously explored everything awesome about both dinosaurs (2019) and sharks (2020), Lowery now heads out along a well-traveled route, taking readers from the Big Bang through a planet-by-planet tour of the solar system and then through a selection of space-exploration highlights. The survey isn’t unique, but Lowery does pour on the gosh-wow by filling each hand-lettered, poster-style spread with emphatic colors and graphics. He also goes for the awesome in his selection of facts—so that readers get nothing about Newton’s laws of motion, for instance, but will come away knowing that just 65 years separate the Wright brothers’ flight and the first moon landing. They’ll also learn that space is silent but smells like burned steak (according to astronaut Chris Hadfield), that thanks to microgravity no one snores on the International Space Station, and that Buzz Aldrin was the first man on the moon…to use the bathroom. And, along with a set of forgettable space jokes (OK, one: “Why did the carnivore eat the shooting star?” “Because it was meteor”), the backmatter features drawing instructions for budding space artists and a short but choice reading list. Nods to Katherine Johnson and NASA’s other African American “computers” as well as astronomer Vera Rubin give women a solid presence in the otherwise male and largely White cast of humans. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A quick flight but a blast from first to last. (Informational picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-35974-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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