Serviceable but nothing to roar about.
Can the venerable I Can Read line attract beginning readers with facts?
For decades these popular, often humorous leveled readers featuring well-known characters (Pinkalicious, Fancy Nancy, Amelia Bedelia, Danny and the Dinosaur, and more) have provided practice in reading skills. For its 60th anniversary publisher Harper has partnered with the National Wildlife Federation’s Ranger Rick magazine and website and tapped veteran science writer Markle to broaden their reach. Questions about lions, including life in a pride, how lions communicate, how lions learn, what lions eat, where lions sleep, and lions’ grooming habits, introduce topics and are highlighted in green. Simple repetitive answers are printed in a clear, black type. Each behavior is illustrated by attractive stock photos from the NWF archives. Ranger Rick, NWF’s iconic cartoon raccoon mascot, interrupts the flow of facts with additional speculative questions, such as “How could teamwork help you?” Intriguing facts that do not fit the format are included in a “Did you know?” section. A “Fun Zone” page explains that lions are very fast and challenges readers to test their own reaction times. “Wild Words” offers a seven-word glossary. “Dig Deeper” refers parents or teachers to the Ranger Rick website. None of this, however, is quite enough to grab the attention of new readers raised on live-action wildlife television.
Serviceable but nothing to roar about. (Informational early reader. 5-9)Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-243205-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another playful imagination-stretcher.
Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.
As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.
Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781339049052
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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