A glowing celebration of life, of time, and of how every part of creation connects with every other.
What we are all made of, from a universal perspective.
As Westerfeld rightly points out in his debut picture book, we join every living thing in being composed of rain and sunshine, of iron and certain other elements in “stones and soil”—all of which our DNA endows with the “ticktock of the living world.” “Some of you was waiting deep in the earth, / ready to be drawn up by the roots of plants,” he muses. He goes on to unpack these lyrically presented notions in the afterword, explaining how DNA chemically codes everybody’s plan, that all living things are largely water, and that most depend on the sun’s energy in direct and indirect ways. In luminous watercolor and gouache illustrations, Lanan follows a brown-skinned family as they stroll past fruit trees and over puddles and hidden roots in an idealized landscape. As the seasons wheel by in their cycles, the mother shows increasing signs of pregnancy. Eventually, her older child watches wide-eyed as she nurses a newborn beneath a radiant burst of flowers; the child goes on to play joyfully in the snow and, in the summer, with the growing little sibling.
A glowing celebration of life, of time, and of how every part of creation connects with every other. (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9781250799326
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe.
An introduction to gravity.
The book opens with the most iconic demonstration of gravity, an apple falling. Throughout, Herz tackles both huge concepts—how gravity compresses atoms to form stars and how black holes pull all kinds of matter toward them—and more concrete ones: how gravity allows you to jump up and then come back down to the ground. Gravity narrates in spare yet lyrical verse, explaining how it creates planets and compresses atoms and comparing itself to a hug. “My embrace is tight enough that you don’t float like a balloon, but loose enough that you can run and leap and play.” Gravity personifies itself at times: “I am stubborn—the bigger things are, the harder I pull.” Beautiful illustrations depict swirling planets and black holes alongside racially diverse children playing, running, and jumping, all thanks to gravity. Thorough backmatter discusses how Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity and explains Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. While at times Herz’s explanations may be a bit too technical for some readers, burgeoning scientists will be drawn in.
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668936849
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
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