A great beginning look at the lifecycles of some fascinating animals and a solid tool for learning about food chains…just...
The fourth in the Life Cycles series (following River, Ocean and Forest), this focuses on 11 Arctic and Antarctic animals, exploring their life cycles and the ways in which they are interconnected by a food chain.
The first food chain Callery presents is hermit crab, Arctic tern, Arctic fox, polar bear. Each spread is devoted to a single animal. Readers’ eyes are led from left to right, reading a short paragraph about the animal, seeing its lifecycle in a four-part circular chart and reading a list of other fascinating facts. A final fact states the animal’s life expectancy and leads right into the next page, which features its predator. Beautiful close-up photographs show the animals in their natural habitats eating, playing and interacting with one another. Publishing concurrently is Grasslands, which explores three food chains in Africa and South and North America. Both texts begin with rudimentary and oversimplified introductions. Food chains start with producers that make their own food, then move on to primary and secondary consumers (“eats small, slow prey”). Finally, “At the top of a food chain is a top predator.” However, these generalizations do not hold true, even within the books—the Grasslands title has one food chain ending with a scavenger.
A great beginning look at the lifecycles of some fascinating animals and a solid tool for learning about food chains…just skip the introductions. (contents, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 5-8)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7534-6691-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kingfisher
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A good overview of this complex, essential organ, with an energetic seasoning of silliness.
An introduction to the lead guitar and vocalist for the Brainiacs—the human brain.
The brain (familiar to readers of Seluk’s “The Awkward Yeti” webcomic, which spun off the adult title Heart and Brain, 2015) looks like a dodgeball with arms and legs—pinkish, sturdy, and roundish, with a pair of square-framed spectacles bestowing an air of importance and hipness. Other organs of the body—tongue, lungs, stomach, muscle, and heart—are featured as members of the brain’s rock band (the verso of the dust jacket is a poster of the band). Seluk’s breezy, conversational prose and brightly colored, boldly outlined cartoon illustrations deliver basic information. The brain’s role in keeping the heart beating and other automatic functions, directing body movements, interpreting sights and sounds, remembering smells and tastes, and regulating sleep and hunger are all explained, prose augmented by dialogue balloons and information sidebars. Seluk points out, importantly, that feelings originate in the brain: “You can control how you react…but your feelings happen no matter what.” The parodied album covers on the front endpapers (including the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Green Day, Run DMC, Queen, Nirvana) will amuse parents—or at least grandparents—and the rear endpapers serve up band members’ clever social media and texting screenshots. Backmatter includes a glossary and further brain trivia but no resources or bibliography.
A good overview of this complex, essential organ, with an energetic seasoning of silliness. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-338-16700-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A winning heads up for younger readers just becoming aware of the wider natural world.
An appeal to share concern for 12 familiar but threatened, endangered, or critically endangered animal species.
The subjects of Marino’s intimate, close-up portraits—fairly naturalistically rendered, though most are also smiling, glancing up at viewers through human eyes, and posed at rest with a cute youngling on lap or flank—steal the show. Still, Clinton’s accompanying tally of facts about each one’s habitat and daily routines, to which the title serves as an ongoing refrain, adds refreshingly unsentimental notes: “A single giraffe kick can kill a lion!”; “[S]hivers of whale sharks can sense a drop of blood if it’s in the water nearby, though they eat mainly plankton.” Along with tucking in collective nouns for each animal (some not likely to be found in major, or any, dictionaries: an “embarrassment” of giant pandas?), the author systematically cites geographical range, endangered status, and assumed reasons for that status, such as pollution, poaching, or environmental change. She also explains the specific meaning of “endangered” and some of its causes before closing with a set of doable activities (all uncontroversial aside from the suggestion to support and visit zoos) and a list of international animal days to celebrate.
A winning heads up for younger readers just becoming aware of the wider natural world. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-51432-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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