A dud rocket.
Astronauts train, ride a Soyuz rocket up a slider to the International Space Station, then return to Earth when their mission is done.
This introduction is so sketchy that the narrative and the pictures differ on the actual number of astronauts involved, and the captions offer a mix of specific facts and fragmentary filler (“The third stage includes an engine”; “The spacesuit provides oxygen for breathing”). Nevertheless, this quick overview of a generic visit to the ISS does reflect both the international character of space missions (at least currently) and the diversity of modern flight crews. Aside from the sliding Soyuz, there are only two small pop-ups, but each of the five openings features cut or folded flaps with additional information or inside views beneath. Along with simply drawn spacecraft and technical gear, Peintre casts a mixed crew of men and women, mostly light skinned but some with darker skin and/or puffy hair. Though individualized, they seem to be just interchangeable place holders, as in one scene the same figure appears twice. The interactive effects are larger and more varied in the co-published Savannah Animals, also by Dussaussois but illustrated by Aurélie Verdon.
A dud rocket. (Informational novelty. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 979-1-02760-703-7
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Twirl/Chronicle
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lighthearted and informative, though the premise may be a bit stretched.
An amiable introduction to our thrifty, sociable, teeming insect cousins.
Bunting notes that all the ants on Earth weigh roughly the same as all the people and observes that ants (like, supposedly, us) love recycling, helping others, and taking “micronaps.” They, too, live in groups, and their “superpower” is an ability to work together to accomplish amazing things. Bunting goes on to describe different sorts of ants within the colony (“Drone. Male. Does no housework. Takes to the sky. Reproduces. Drops dead”), how they communicate using pheromones, and how they get from egg to adult. He concludes that we could learn a lot from them that would help us leave our planet in better shape than it was when we arrived. If he takes a pass on mentioning a few less positive shared traits (such as our tendency to wage war on one another), still, his comparisons do invite young readers to observe the natural world more closely and to reflect on our connections to it. In the simple illustrations, generic black ants look up at viewers with little googly eyes while scurrying about the pages gathering food, keeping nests clean, and carrying outsized burdens.
Lighthearted and informative, though the premise may be a bit stretched. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780593567784
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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