GERALDINE AND THE MOST SPECTACULAR SCIENCE PROJECT

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GERALDINE AND THE MOST SPECTACULAR SCIENCE PROJECT

Name: GERALDINE AND THE MOST SPECTACULAR SCIENCE PROJECT
Author: Sol Regwan
ISBN: 978-0-7643-5898-2

From the Gizmo Girl series

by Sol Regwan ; illustrated by Denise Muzzio ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 2020

Doubtless well meant but a superficial view of what science both is and does.

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Motivated by the possibility of winning a prize, a second grade gadgeteer gets to work.

No sooner does young inventor Geraldine hear that there will be a prize for Best Second Grade Scientist in an unlikely classroom “science contest” than she races home to the boxes of random parts she’s extracted from various household appliances in the course of earlier tinkering. She proceeds to construct binoculars—using, somehow, old eyeglasses, “lenses” from a camera, cardboard tubes, and a mirror—that “will make it possible to see Mars from Earth!” (Um…should someone tell her she already can?) The illustrations depict Geraldine’s jumbled supplies as what looks like piles of dirt with the occasional electric plug or bottle sticking out, and most of her supposed inventions as visibly unworkable. Come the day, her contraption inexplicably stuns her classmates, winning out over a fishbowl ecosystem and a remote-controlled orrery (!), so (claims the narrator) proving to the class that she isn’t just a “mischievous daydreamer” but “a scientist!” (A false dichotomy if ever there was one.) Look for more credible STEM-centric role models (with worthier motives) in Andrea Beaty’s Ada Twist, Scientist, illustrated by David Roberts (2016); Kimberly Derting and Shelli R. Johannes’ Cece Loves Science, illustrated by Vashti Harrison (2018); and elsewhere. Geraldine and most of her class present as white; there are two students with darker skin.

Doubtless well meant but a superficial view of what science both is and does. (Picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2020

ISBN: 978-0-7643-5898-2

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Schiffer

Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
I COULD BE
by Sol Regwan ; illustrated by Denise Muzzio

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TOUCH THE EARTH

From the Julian Lennon White Feather Flier Adventure series , Vol. 1

by Julian Lennon with Bart Davis ; illustrated by Smiljana Coh ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 11, 2017

“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so...

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A pro bono Twinkie of a book invites readers to fly off in a magic plane to bring clean water to our planet’s oceans, deserts, and brown children.

Following a confusingly phrased suggestion beneath a soft-focus world map to “touch the Earth. Now touch where you live,” a shake of the volume transforms it into a plane with eyes and feathered wings that flies with the press of a flat, gray “button” painted onto the page. Pressing like buttons along the journey releases a gush of fresh water from the ground—and later, illogically, provides a filtration device that changes water “from yucky to clean”—for thirsty groups of smiling, brown-skinned people. At other stops, a tap on the button will “help irrigate the desert,” and touching floating bottles and other debris in the ocean supposedly makes it all disappear so the fish can return. The 20 children Coh places on a globe toward the end are varied of skin tone, but three of the four young saviors she plants in the flier’s cockpit as audience stand-ins are white. The closing poem isn’t so openly parochial, though it seldom rises above vague feel-good sentiments: “Love the Earth, the moon and sun. / All the children can be one.”

“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so easy to clean the place up and give everyone a drink? (Picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: April 11, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-5107-2083-1

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Sky Pony Press

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
HEAL THE EARTH
by Julian Lennon & Bart Davis ; illustrated by Smiljana Coh

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PLUTO GETS THE CALL

by Adam Rex ; illustrated by Laurie Keller ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019

Hurray for the underdog.

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Heart (-shaped surface feature) literally broken by its demotion from planet status, Pluto glumly conducts readers on a tour of the solar system.

You’d be bummed, too. Angrily rejecting the suggestions of “mean scientists” from Earth that “ice dwarf” or “plutoid” might serve as well (“Would you like to be called humanoid?”), Pluto drifts out of the Kuiper Belt to lead readers past the so-called “real” planets in succession. All sport faces with googly eyes in Keller’s bright illustrations, and distinct personalities, too—but also actual physical characteristics (“Neptune is pretty icy. And gassy. I’m not being mean, he just is”) that are supplemented by pages of “fun facts” at the end. Having fended off Saturn’s flirtation, endured Jupiter’s stormy reception (“Keep OFF THE GAS!”) and relentless mockery from the asteroids, and given Earth the cold shoulder, Pluto at last takes the sympathetic suggestion of Venus and Mercury to talk to the Sun. “She’s pretty bright.” A (what else?) warm welcome, plus our local star’s comforting reminders that every celestial body is unique (though “people talk about Uranus for reasons I don’t really want to get into”), and anyway, scientists are still arguing the matter because that’s what “science” is all about, mend Pluto’s heart at last: “Whatever I’m called, I’ll always be PLUTO!”

Hurray for the underdog. (afterword) (Informational picture book. 6-8)