by Sandra Markle ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 17, 2017
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
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by Nicola Davies ; illustrated by Jane Ray ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 7, 2019
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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by Nicola Davies ; illustrated by Emily Sutton
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by Kari Lavelle ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2023
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
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by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Nabi H. Ali
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