A dozen earthly gems, buffed high by Simon.
Simon adds another to his mammoth body of swinging, smart science books for kids.
The author devotes four pages each to the most extreme environments and environmental events on Earth: coldest, hottest, driest, highest, deepest, biggest earthquake, largest volcano, most destructive tsunami and kindred greats. As always—and this is no mean feat—he manages to wow readers, while imparting the scientific circumstances that either create or allow for these phenomena. There is the sheer juicy stuff—temperatures ranging from minus 129 F to 160 F, 56 feet of annual snowfall—but he also adds the human factor (why do 300 people live on Tristan de Cunha, the world’s most remote place?) and introduces the rare flora and fauna. There is an artful blend of text and image, but so much happens in the mind’s eye—a wave traveling at 600 mph, holy cow—that Simon really gets readers thinking. Two grouses: There should have been a photo of Mount Thor on Baffin Island, the greatest pure vertical drop (4100 feet), rather than three waterfall shots; but most egregiously—no maps! Metric measurements are included parenthetically. These places are somewhere—perhaps near, so let’s go—and readers deserve a sense of their location.
A dozen earthly gems, buffed high by Simon. (index) (Nonfiction. 7-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4521-0785-1
Page Count: 60
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.
This book is buzzing with trivia.
Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A quick flight but a blast from first to last.
A charged-up roundup of astro-facts.
Having previously explored everything awesome about both dinosaurs (2019) and sharks (2020), Lowery now heads out along a well-traveled route, taking readers from the Big Bang through a planet-by-planet tour of the solar system and then through a selection of space-exploration highlights. The survey isn’t unique, but Lowery does pour on the gosh-wow by filling each hand-lettered, poster-style spread with emphatic colors and graphics. He also goes for the awesome in his selection of facts—so that readers get nothing about Newton’s laws of motion, for instance, but will come away knowing that just 65 years separate the Wright brothers’ flight and the first moon landing. They’ll also learn that space is silent but smells like burned steak (according to astronaut Chris Hadfield), that thanks to microgravity no one snores on the International Space Station, and that Buzz Aldrin was the first man on the moon…to use the bathroom. And, along with a set of forgettable space jokes (OK, one: “Why did the carnivore eat the shooting star?” “Because it was meteor”), the backmatter features drawing instructions for budding space artists and a short but choice reading list. Nods to Katherine Johnson and NASA’s other African American “computers” as well as astronomer Vera Rubin give women a solid presence in the otherwise male and largely White cast of humans. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A quick flight but a blast from first to last. (Informational picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-35974-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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