Attractive, colorful, and age-appropriate, though not without flaw.
A brown-skinned young girl acts as “bug guide,” inviting readers to search for some bugs with her in this attractive offering by Yoon.
The book showcases a total of eight common insects, from ladybug and butterfly to bumblebee and ant, one on each page in close-up detail, with a green, leafy background. Each insect is printed on a large flap that’s sturdy and easy for a toddler to lift up, and underneath is a colorful illustration of the insect in its natural environment and a rhyming couplet (sometimes clunky but always age-appropriate) giving brief basic facts about it. “Lightning bugs come out at night / and flash their little glowing light”; “Grasshoppers can jump so high! / They also use their wings to fly.” The book supports a common misconception by including the spider, an arachnid, with the rest of the insects, encouraging another generation to believe that spiders are insects: “Spiders creep and sneak and crawl. / They weave their webs, both big and small.” Bright, colorful illustrations show the insects in natural colors and all at the same size, not drawn to scale. Companion book Dinosaur Discovery works on the same format with a young white-skinned girl as “field guide” and features eight common dinosaurs, including Stegosaurus, Triceratops, and Argentinosaurus, again not to scale. Some of the facts may be unverifiable, such as assertions about coloration and vocalization.
Attractive, colorful, and age-appropriate, though not without flaw. (Board book. 18 mos.-4)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4549-2108-0
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet and endearing feathered migration.
A relationship between a Latina grandmother and her mixed-race granddaughter serves as the frame to depict the ruby-throated hummingbird migration pattern.
In Granny’s lap, a girl is encouraged to “keep still” as the intergenerational pair awaits the ruby-throated hummingbirds with bowls of water in their hands. But like the granddaughter, the tz’unun—“the word for hummingbird in several [Latin American] languages”—must soon fly north. Over the next several double-page spreads, readers follow the ruby-throated hummingbird’s migration pattern from Central America and Mexico through the United States all the way to Canada. Davies metaphorically reunites the granddaughter and grandmother when “a visitor from Granny’s garden” crosses paths with the girl in New York City. Ray provides delicately hashed lines in the illustrations that bring the hummingbirds’ erratic flight pattern to life as they travel north. The watercolor palette is injected with vibrancy by the addition of gold ink, mirroring the hummingbirds’ flashing feathers in the slants of light. The story is supplemented by notes on different pages with facts about the birds such as their nest size, diet, and flight schedule. In addition, a note about ruby-throated hummingbirds supplies readers with detailed information on how ornithologists study and keep track of these birds.
A sweet and endearing feathered migration. (bibliography, index) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0538-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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