Busy design seeks to illustrate Aesop’s fable of the crow and the pitcher, with an emphasis on the scientific method—hence, presumably, the “Professor” Aesop of the title. The story is told straightforwardly and without linguistic elaboration: the thirsty crow finds a pitcher of water; the water level being too low for his beak to reach, he uses the principle of water displacement to raise the level of the water with a series of pebbles until he is able to drink. With a heavy reliance on digital technique, newcomer Brown’s full-bleed, mixed-media illustrations add what are probably meant to be clever touches: a thermometer measuring the “ambient temperature” (a term that goes unexplained), a Thirst-o-meter, a determination scale, and a pebble indicator are added one by one as the crow works through his solution. Blueprint diagrams illustrate both the essential problem and the solution, and an X-ray shows the raising of the water level in process. The moral—“Necessity + Perseverance (that’s good old hard work) = Invention”—precedes a busy and confusing double-paged spread explanation of “the scientific method according to crow.” The notion of introducing children to the scientific method is praiseworthy, but this attempt to illustrate it falls victim to its own cuteness. While the various scales at the sides of the page are entertaining, they add little to the mission of the narrative, instead serving to distract the reader from the simple elegance of the crow’s solution. The illustrations are bright and appealing, but in the end they are more obfuscatory than illustrative. Children are natural scientists; they do not need these extraneous bells and whistles to encourage exploration. (Picture book/nonfiction. 4-7)
Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 1-58246-087-6
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Tricycle
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
None
``...She's a big one too,/Browsing on blossoms/Drenched with dew.'' In spritely verse, a child getting ready for school reports the drama accumulating outside her Vermont farmhouse window: traffic halts, minutes pass, and more animals congregate- -plus a paperboy treed by ``...a goat in the road! At the edge of our drive/As I pull on my socks/At seven-oh-five.'' By the time the school bus comes at ``seven forty-four,'' there are half a dozen noisy, friendly creatures waiting with the kids. The cadence propels the verse like a well-oiled ticking clock, while Pearson's dancing lines and effervescent watercolors embroider the humor at every turn, from a heap of toy animals on the little girl's bed—as numerous as those outdoors—to the cheerful crowd waving goodbye at the end. A joyous, comical pacesetter for a busy morning. (Picture book. 4-7)
None NonePub Date: Aug. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-8037-1335-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Handsome illustrations and a colorful cover are not enough to make this title in the Young Discoveries Library a useful purchase. Odd—and not-so-odd—creatures are presented in spreads with large full-color glossy drawings, with one main paragraph each and several descriptive captions. The text is banal and adds little to understanding: ``Black rhinos puff like steam engines when they charge at their enemies,'' and ``Pacific hagfish can tie themselves into knots to wriggle out of an enemy's grasp.'' Unrelated animals are grouped together under headings such as ``Armed for Life'' (armadillos and turtles) and ``In the Air'' (the focus is on bats, but a squirrel glider is pictured because it ``does not have wings like a bat''). A howler monkey is paired with a troop of ring-tailed lemurs. The text for ``Tusks and Horns'' indicates that a rhinoceros has a horn made of keratin (which will grow back if cut off), a walrus has unusual teeth called tusks, two male narwhals may cross their tusks like swords, and a unicorn is an imaginary horse with a horn on its head. Intended for young children, this collection is more confusing than enlightening. (Nonfiction. 5-7)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-7835-4840-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1996
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