Skip.
On his first solo expedition to find food, a woodpecker named Pierce figures out how to evict a skunk from a log full of juicy bugs.
The story begins with a picture of a mother woodpecker gripping her child in a headlock as the text avers, “Pierce knew that he was old enough to leave the nest.” On the next pages, when Pierce assures his mother he is ready for independence, readers learn a nature fact—the woodpecker’s foraging process: “Find an old tree. Hammer the wood. Eat the yummy bugs.” Pierce then has difficult encounters with several woodland creatures who chase him away from their various nests. Pierce’s apparently clever use of bees as an asset to his campaign to gain access to old trees turns a nominally realistic story into science fiction. Some young readers may enjoy the humor inherent in such exaggerations as a beak accordioned by hammering. The story also allows the youngest children practice in sequencing, as Pierce systematically revisits everyone he has previously seen. The use of realistically portrayed human eyeballs in animals covered with feathers and fur is visually disquieting; an opossum playing dead is particularly grotesque. The best part of the book is at the end, where there are two carefully presented pages of facts about woodpeckers and creative activities centered on the birds.
Skip. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-55455-284-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Fitzhenry & Whiteside
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
A solid, small step for diversifying STEM stories.
What does Annie want to be?
As career day approaches, Annie wants to keep her job choice secret until her family sees her presentation at school. Readers will figure it out, however, through the title and clues Tadgell incorporates into the illustrations. Family members make guesses about her ambitions that are tied to their own passions, although her brother watches as she completes her costume in a bedroom with a Mae Jemison poster, starry décor, and a telescope. There’s a celebratory mood at the culminating presentation, where Annie says she wants to “soar high through the air” like her basketball-playing mother, “explore faraway places” like her hiker dad, and “be brave and bold” like her baker grandmother (this feels forced, but oven mitts are part of her astronaut costume) so “the whole world will hear my exciting stories” like her reporter grandfather. Annie jumps off a chair to “BLAST OFF” in a small illustration superimposed on a larger picture depicting her floating in space with a reddish ground below. It’s unclear if Annie imagines this scene or if it’s her future-self exploring Mars, but either scenario fits the aspirational story. Backmatter provides further reading suggestions and information about the moon and four women astronauts, one of whom is Jemison. Annie and her family are all black.
A solid, small step for diversifying STEM stories. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-88448-523-0
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
This catch is fumbled.
Having attempted to catch the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the Gingerbread Man, a group of kids set their sights on a groundhog.
After two score and counting How To Catch books, this latest addition suggests that there’s nothing left to capture. The verses are feeble (“But I’m chilled to my bones deep inside / I feel the wind across my backside”), while the illustrations are mundane. On one page, a child crouches in a drift eating “stick cheese” (apparently because it rhymes with “trees”). Another catches a football thrown by a friend but falls across a stone slab, breaking it in two. Far below, the anthropomorphic groundhog’s breakfast is disturbed; his cup, saucer, creamer, and sugar bowl are jostled. “Tomorrow is his big holiday,” the children note. “Will a shadow fall outside the den? / We need him to answer this riddle: / we know winter ends but not when.” Ultimately, though the intrepid hunters set a series of traps, they’re disappointed to catch only a rabbit. The groundhog, it turns out, is hibernating in an elaborate wrought iron bed. On the very next page, the mayor holds up the beast. How was he caught, then? We don’t know. What was his verdict on winter’s duration? We don’t know. Will the series ever stop? We can only hope. Human characters are diverse.
This catch is fumbled. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9781728293035
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
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