Not the strongest in the series, but a good introduction to keeping the mind and body active and healthy.
Ritchie’s five friends learn about keeping their minds and bodies fit and healthy as they prepare for a swim meet.
This latest in the Exploring Our Community series follows Pedro, Sally, Nick, Yulee, and Martin as they practice once more before tomorrow’s race, have fun together, and meet an Olympic swimmer. Using proper equipment for your sport, warming up, understanding where you need to improve and setting goals for yourself, decreasing anxiety and stress, hand-washing, eating a variety of healthy foods, and engaging in deep breathing and visualization are among the topics briefly addressed. Ritchie emphasizes throughout the importance of the mind-body connection: How one feels influences the other. Backmatter includes some fun things kids can do with their friends to achieve their 60 to 90 minutes of activity each day and a list of defined terms. This entry is not as seamless as See What We Eat (2017) in terms of either the flow of the story or folding in the learning without seeming didactic. The story is thin, but the relationships among the five kids (four with light skin and varying hair colors, one with dark skin and hair) continue to be a highlight. They cheer for and support one another and truly enjoy being together and having fun.
Not the strongest in the series, but a good introduction to keeping the mind and body active and healthy. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-77138-967-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Instructive on several levels—and good, wet fun! (Informational picture book. 4-7)
Is it a universal truth that kids don’t like baths?
Maybe yes, maybe no. Children may not like the bathing experience at first, but they often don’t want it to end. By home bathtubs, communal baths, lakes, rivers, and even a mud volcano, cajoling adults say, “Yes, yes,” while unwilling children shout, “No, no!” These words, in many languages (in English transliteration) and their phonetic pronunciations (in a smaller font), are woven into the illustrations (and so are not always easily read). Exuberant illustrations, emphasizing aqueous blues and greens, are executed in oils with collage elements and finished in Photoshop. The unclothed young children and more modestly covered adults have different skin and hair colors, but the book starts in an unnamed country (the U.S.?) with a loving, brown-skinned mom summoning her reluctant child to an old-fashioned bathtub. The same adorable boy doesn’t want to leave the tub at the end and splashes his mom, who then cuddles him reassuringly in a towel. In between these familiar domestic scenes, a Japanese family lines up to use the ofuro, a square wooden tub; Turkish siblings go to the hammann, a beautifully decorated bathhouse; an Indian dad and his little boy go to the Ganges to “honor their ancestors”; and an Alaskan Yup’ik family visits a maquii for a traditional sweat bath. Although there is no map, there are lively explanatory notes.
Instructive on several levels—and good, wet fun! (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-58089-544-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Appealingly designed and illustrated, an engaging, fun story about the inspiration and inventor of that essential staple of...
The Band-Aid is one of those remarkably useful things that just about everyone has used, but has anyone wondered who invented them and how they become a staple in medicine cabinets all over?
In an engaging, humorous narrative, Wittenstein reveals the true story behind the invention. In the 1920s, Earle Dickson worked as a cotton buyer for Johnson & Johnson. His wife, Josephine, was an accident-prone klutz who frequently injured herself in the kitchen, slicing, grating, and burning herself. The son of a doctor, Earle worked on finding easier ways to bandage Josephine’s injuries than wrapping them in rags. He took adhesive tape, then applied sterile gauze and crinoline, and the first Band-Aid was born. Impressed with Earle’s prototype, his boss agreed to produce and sell the bandage, but it took a while to catch on. Once Band-Aids were mass-produced, the company gave them away to Boy Scouts and soldiers serving in World War II, and then they caught on with the American public and the rest of world. Wittenstein notes that some of the dialogue and interactions between Earle and Josephine are imagined. Hsu’s illustrations, done in mixed media and Photoshop, have a whimsical, retro look that nicely complements the lighthearted tone of the text. Earle and Josephine are white, but people of color appear in backgrounds.
Appealingly designed and illustrated, an engaging, fun story about the inspiration and inventor of that essential staple of home first aid. (timeline, websites) (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-58089-745-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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