Lovingly reinforces the idea that diverse families are a natural part of our large and diverse world.
The text is embraced by rainbow-stripe endpapers and a clear message that even though no two families, human or animal, “are quite the same,” nevertheless “they all have one thing that’s the same…love.” Within, each double-page spread highlights a different animal family with two levels of text; one is a general comment (“Here is a family where Mommy looks after the babies”), and the second offers more parenting facts (“Orangutan mommies look after their young longer than any other animal parent, and they do it on their own. They love their babies, very, very much”). Backmatter notes keyed to thumbnail pictures add additional, general information about each animal in the text. Animals as familiar as the clownfish, elephant, and cheetah are included, as are lesser-known animals such as the albatross, long-tailed tit, and emu. In scenes from diverse ecosystems—the Australian Outback, the oceans, North American woodland, and African savanna and desert—mothers, fathers, mother-and-father pairs, large extended families and communities, grandparents, two mothers, and two fathers raise and protect their young offspring. Spread after spread of boldly colored illustrations of a lush rainforest, a glowing coral reef, golden grasslands, and an icy evergreen branch, among others, make this a storytime winner for all seasons.
Lovingly reinforces the idea that diverse families are a natural part of our large and diverse world. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68464-191-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Bruce Goldstone’s Awesome Autumn (2012) is still the gold standard.
Rotner follows Hello Spring (2017) with this salute to the fall season.
Name a change seen in northern climes in fall, and Rotner likely covers it here, from plants, trees, and animals to the food we harvest: seeds are spread, the days grow shorter and cooler, the leaves change and fall (and are raked up and jumped in), some animals migrate, and many families celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving. As in the previous book, the photographs (presented in a variety of sizes and layouts, all clean) are the stars here, displaying both the myriad changes of the season and a multicultural array of children enjoying the outdoors in fall. These are set against white backgrounds that make the reddish-orange print pop. The text itself uses short sentences and some solid vocabulary (though “deep sleep” is used instead of “hibernate”) to teach readers the markers of autumn, though in the quest for simplicity, Rotner sacrifices some truth. In several cases, the addition of just a few words would have made the following oversimplified statements reflect reality: “Birds grow more feathers”; “Cranberries float and turn red.” Also, Rotner includes the statement “Bees store extra honey in their hives” on a page about animals going into deep sleep, implying that honeybees hibernate, which is false.
Bruce Goldstone’s Awesome Autumn (2012) is still the gold standard. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3869-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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
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