bookshelf

ANIMAL KINGDOM

Name: ANIMAL KINGDOM
Author: Simon Rogers
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7122-8

From the Information Graphics series , Vol. 1

by Simon Rogers ; illustrated by Nicholas Blechman ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 2014

Flashy at first glance, routine at second and subsequent looks.

bookshelf

With scattered exceptions, the trendy “infographics” approach stops at the title in this haphazard ramble past animal types and extremes.

The book is printed on stiff stock and features edge tabs bearing icons to denote each section’s subject—not always well-chosen ones: Dog faces mark both the chapter on dogs and one on animal senses in general. The coverage begins with Darwin and ends abruptly (sans index or other backmatter) with a highly select gallery of canine breeds. In between, it offers equally select surveys of animal habitats, physical characteristics, family life, defense mechanisms and other topics. The writing sometimes reads like a bad translation: “A hippo can extend its mouth to 180 degrees.” The snippets of text are placed around or within intensely hued images that are mostly solid, stylized animal silhouettes, but unlike the ingeniously designed graphics in Margaret Hynes and Andy Crisp’s Picture This! Animals (2014), here the art is seldom arranged or scaled to impart information in a visual way. Aside from, for instance, a toothbrush “graph” comparing the numbers of various creatures’ teeth or silhouettes running around a marked speed gauge, Blechman’s illustrations just place animals in decorative groupings or next to conventional lists and bar graphs.

Flashy at first glance, routine at second and subsequent looks. (Nonfiction. 11-13)

Pub Date: April 8, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-7636-7122-8

Page Count: 80

Publisher: Big Picture/Candlewick

Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
HUMAN BODY
by Simon Rogers ; illustrated by Peter Grundy

bookshelf

THE STORM

by Kathy Henderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1999

bookshelf

A picture book combines the exuberance of children and the drama found in nature for a sly lesson on power-sharing. Henderson (Newborn, 1999, etc.) lands on the wide reaches of a windy beach where young Jim expansively flings wide his arms and claims “All this is mine!” So it seems until the wind blows in a gale so violent that it smashes objects and tears “through the dreams of people sleeping.” An eerie series of black-and-white paintings shows the white-capped waves breaking ever higher and crashing inland; these are so frightening that Jim cries out to his mother, “The sea! It’s coming!” Happily enough, Jim and his mother are able to run up the hill to a grandmother’s house where they weather the storm safely. The next time Jim speaks to the wind, on a much quieter beach, he whispers, “All this is yours.” Large type, appealing pastel illustrations, and a dose of proper perspective on humankind’s power over nature make this book a fine choice for story hours as well as nature collections. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-7636-0904-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

bookshelf

THE BONE KEEPER

by Megan McDonald ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1999

bookshelf

From McDonald (Tundra Mouse, 1997, etc.), a haunting, dramatic glimpse of the Bone Keeper, a trickster with special transformational powers. Some say Bone Woman is a ghost; some envision her with three heads that view past, present, and future simultaneously. Most, however, call her the “Skeleton Maker” or “Keeper of Bones.” Chanting, shaking, moaning, and wailing, the Bone Keeper is frenzied as she sorts bones; not until the end of the book are readers told, in murmuring lines of free verse, what the Bone Keeper is creating in her mysterious desert cave. Out of the darkness, a wolf springs to life, leaps from the cave, howling, a symbol of resurrection and proof of life’s cyclical nature. Also keeping readers guessing as to the Bone Keeper’s final creation are Karas’s paintings; they, too, require that the final piece of the puzzle be placed before all are understood. The coloring and textures embody the desert setting in the evening, showing the fearsome cave and sandy shadows that wait to release the mystery of the bones. (Picture book. 5-8)