A casual introduction to the topic, with resources for further study.
Readers learn the relationship between the colors of flowers and pollination.
With a googly-eyed cactus as her narrator, Levine explains why flowers need help with pollination from animals and why it’s key to the survival of plants. Since most plants need pollen from other plants of their own species to fertilize their seeds, their colors “advertise” their plants’ attraction to pollinating creatures. The text characterizes these adaptations as deception: “We trick them into carrying [pollen] for us. We’re nice about it, though—we pay them a little something for their efforts.” Intriguing facts surface: Red flowers appeal mainly to birds, since insects can’t see red. White flowers, often scented, are luminous to nocturnal moths and bats. The stinky smells of brown flowers lure flies. Green flowers, being wind-pollinated, don’t need to “talk” to animals. Using personification to convey science concepts to children is endemic—and the snarky narration will find fans. Two spreads on flowers that attract bees depict only bumblebees and honeybees, missing an opportunity to give readers a sense of the many families of bees. A labeled flower diagram does not identify the anther—only the pollen that sits atop it. D’yans’ digital-and-watercolor illustrations, while often lovely, emphasize vibrant color and aggregated species arrays, not scientific verisimilitude. The pictured plant and animal species go largely unidentified, leaving readers puzzling.
A casual introduction to the topic, with resources for further study. (pollination facts and diagrams, protecting pollinators, bibliography) (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5415-1928-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Millbrook/Lerner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts.
From a Caldecott and Sibert honoree, an invitation to take a mind-expanding journey from the surface of our planet to the furthest reaches of the observable cosmos.
Though Chin’s assumption that we are even capable of understanding the scope of the universe is quixotic at best, he does effectively lead viewers on a journey that captures a sense of its scale. Following the model of Kees Boeke’s classic Cosmic View: The Universe in Forty Jumps (1957), he starts with four 8-year-old sky watchers of average height (and different racial presentations). They peer into a telescope and then are comically startled by the sudden arrival of an ostrich that is twice as tall…and then a giraffe that is over twice as tall as that…and going onward and upward, with ellipses at each page turn connecting the stages, past our atmosphere and solar system to the cosmic web of galactic superclusters. As he goes, precisely drawn earthly figures and features in the expansive illustrations give way to ever smaller celestial bodies and finally to glimmering swirls of distant lights against gulfs of deep black before ultimately returning to his starting place. A closing recap adds smaller images and additional details. Accompanying the spare narrative, valuable side notes supply specific lengths or distances and define their units of measure, accurately explain astronomical phenomena, and close with the provocative observation that “the observable universe is centered on us, but we are not in the center of the entire universe.”
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts. (afterword, websites, further reading) (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4623-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
