A well-designed compendium of information about world architecture, if a mite formal.
From France, an elegantly designed atlas of world architecture, illustrated exclusively with drawings and packed with useful facts about a large selection of around 36 noteworthy monuments from each of six continents.
Each continent is illustrated with a large map showing numbered thumbnail images of the buildings and a panel with key facts about the region: number of countries, population size and density, percentage of the world’s population, surface area, and climate. The buildings featured are fairly evenly divided between striking contemporary architecture (London’s Gherkin and Shard, Malaysia’s Petronas Towers, Quito’s UNASUR headquarters—“180 feet of cantilevers”!) and religious and political structures (the Taj Mahal, the Blue Mosque, the Caribbean Center of Slavery and the Slave Trade, Romania’s Palace of the Parliament—the “second largest administrative building in the world,” covering 1,280 acres). Each spread offers a dozen or so panels, each illustrating a building and containing key statistics including "did you know?"–type facts; the architect’s name; location, size, height, quantity of material, special features, and years of construction. The endpapers show some of the buildings in relative scale. The order of presentation begins the tour in Europe and concludes in South America, and the diversity of building styles and types should open the most jingoistic eyes.
A well-designed compendium of information about world architecture, if a mite formal. (Nonfiction. 8-14)Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-3-89955-775-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little Gestalten
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
Cheers of “STOOKY!” will rise when Origami Yoda answers “The End?” with “Way No!” (Graphic fiction hybrid. 9-12)
Is Principal Rabbski the evil Empress of FunTime or the Origami Rebel Alliance’s only hope?
Picking up where The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppet (2013) left off, the seventh graders of McQuarrie Middle School and their individual, ever-present origami Star Wars character puppets continue their fight with Principal Rabbski to restore their fun (and educational) elective classes and themselves of the soul-crushingly boring standardized test prep classes created by FunTime. Principal Rabbski agreed (when threatened with purposeful test-flunking) to try to do something about the embarrassing rapping-calculator videos and repetitive worksheets of FunTime, but she’s done nothing for weeks. Now, it seems one of the rebels has given Principal Rabbski the latest case file, covered with printed labels—ostensibly notes from Princess Labelmaker— telling her she is their “only hope.” Meanwhile, the Origami Rebel Alliance continues to try to learn and help one another. They play crab soccer, put on their lunchtime musical and prove to Mike’s mother Star Wars is not evil—but will the coming of Xtreme.Fun™ seal their doom? Fans will devour this satisfying and nicely realistic conclusion to the story set up in the previous volume. Characters grow, and non–Star Wars pop-culture references seep in. Readers new to the series are advised to go back to the beginning; they won’t regret it.
Cheers of “STOOKY!” will rise when Origami Yoda answers “The End?” with “Way No!” (Graphic fiction hybrid. 9-12)Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4197-1052-0
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
What do flowers remember? The stories of the people who cared for them, of course, as Wiersbitzky’s sensitive novel...
Thanks to her love of flowers, Delia has become a sort of apprentice to talented gardener Old Red and is devastated when he begins to show signs of encroaching dementia.
With all of the confidence of youth, she holds in her heart the belief that perhaps with her help—and that of all his loving neighbors—she can preserve his memories by collecting favorite stories about the beloved man. As she moves through the months, she records (in a rather mature first-person) both the tasks she completes in the garden as well as the stories she collects about him, also describing Red’s tragically inexorable decline. Delia’s surrounded by loving adults, and she shares her grief with best friend Mae and new love interest Tommy, as well as receiving support from members of her church; with these relationships, this warm effort neatly captures the strength of a close-knit community and the tight bonds that can form between the very old and the young. The 13-year-old’s often lyrical prose is attractive, even though it sometimes strays toward a more adult-sounding voice. Her frustration, fear and sense of loss will be readily recognizable to others who have experienced dementia in a loved one, and her story may provide some guidance on how to move down that rocky path toward acceptance and letting go.
What do flowers remember? The stories of the people who cared for them, of course, as Wiersbitzky’s sensitive novel compassionately conveys. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: May 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-60898-166-3
Page Count: 158
Publisher: Namelos
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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