Only Scott O'Dell could turn an uneventful cruise up the Pacific coast into a suspenseful adventure based entirely on his growing suspicions about the reliability of the Arctic Star's hired skipper and, at the same time, conduct a grand tour from the confines of the boat's cabin. The psychological warfare between O'Dell and the happy-go-lucky Rod grows as Rod backs up his reluctance to work by suggesting O'Dell reread passages about the slavedriving captain in Two Years Before the Mast (adding hints of shipboard mutiny to what might be merely a personality dash). The culmination comes in a smashing storm scene where the O'Dells are on hand to see Rod, who has jumped ship previously, sink his new employer's boat and still come out a hero for saving passengers from the wreck he caused. In the lulls between his clashes with Rod, the author spins tales (about Father Serra, Kit Carson's ordeal on Starvation Peak, and Jed Smith's encounter with a grizzly bear), mourns the passing of California's sea otters and the depletion of the ecologically important kelp beds, and looks back to his own arrival in the state as a young boy. While the Arctic Star is real, this is definitely a novelist's interpretation, the voyage a framework for all those scenes from the California past which the author has obviously long had in his imagination. It's worth going along.
Pub Date: March 23, 1973
ISBN: 1893103250
Page Count: -
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1973
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit.
The bubble-helmeted feline explains what rockets do and the role they have played in sending people (and animals) into space.
Addressing a somewhat younger audience than in previous outings (Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, 2013, etc.), Astro Cat dispenses with all but a light shower of “factoroids” to describe how rockets work. A highly selective “History of Space Travel” follows—beginning with a crew of fruit flies sent aloft in 1947, later the dog Laika (her dismal fate left unmentioned), and the human Yuri Gagarin. Then it’s on to Apollo 11 in 1969; the space shuttles Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger (the fates of the latter two likewise elided); the promise of NASA’s next-gen Orion and the Space Launch System; and finally vague closing references to other rockets in the works for local tourism and, eventually, interstellar travel. In the illustrations the spacesuited professor, joined by a mouse and cat in similar dress, do little except float in space and point at things. Still, the art has a stylish retro look, and portraits of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford diversify an otherwise all-white, all-male astronaut corps posing heroically or riding blocky, geometric spacecraft across starry reaches.
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-911171-55-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This genuinely clever math book uses rhyming couplets and riddles, as well as visual cues to help the reader find new ways to group numbers for quick counting. It’s a return to number sets, with none of those boring parentheses and <>signs. Here the rhyme gives a clue to the new ways of grouping numbers. For example: “Mama mia, pizza pie, / How many mushrooms do you spy? / Please don’t count them, it’s too slow, / This hot pie was made to go! / Let me give you some advice, / Just do half and count it twice.” A quick look at the pizza, and the reader can see each slice has the same number of mushrooms. Count by threes for half the pie, and double it. Each rhyme is given a double-page spread. The extra-large, brightly colored images leap off the page but never distract from the author’s intent. Some riddles are very challenging, but the author provides all the solutions in the back. Once the reader has seen the answers, the strategy is obvious and can be applied to other situations. Great fun for math enthusiasts and creative thinkers, this might also teach adults some new tricks. A winning addition. (Nonfiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-439-21033-X
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
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