A slice-of-life look at a mother grizzly and her two cubs in Yellowstone National Park. After a winter’s hibernation, a grizzly “explodes in a shower of snow from the entrance of its den,” followed by two three-month-old cubs. Mother grizzly adjusts to the light, reads the wind, and initiates the search for food. She sates herself on roots and bulbs, pulls a ground squirrel from its hole, and spies a hawk without great action. The face of a boar grizzly then significantly fills the page, and mother grizzly confronts the young male over an elk carcass, fighting to protect her cubs with snapping jaw and slashing claws until the male bolts into the woods. Readers interested enough to follow a grizzly through a typical day may pick up tidbits of information along the way, but the overall search for food never emerges as a real story. Snowy landscapes deepened by red sunsets give way to the green, flowering meadows of April in Yellowstone, the perfect naturalistic scenery for outdoor panoramas showcasing the shaggy-coated creatures nuzzling, hunting, loping, tussling, and resting. The horizontal spreads are broken only by left and right hand blocks of text set against a light beige background imitative of aspen bark—a nice touch. An extensive author’s note outlines size, characteristics, and habitat; a list of further reading includes two bear web sites. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-7613-0059-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Millbrook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1998
Though told by two outsiders to the culture, this timely and well-crafted story will educate readers on the preciousness of...
An international story tackles a serious global issue with Reynolds’ characteristic visual whimsy.
Gie Gie—aka Princess Gie Gie—lives with her parents in Burkina Faso. In her kingdom under “the African sky, so wild and so close,” she can tame wild dogs with her song and make grass sway, but despite grand attempts, she can neither bring the water closer to home nor make it clean. French words such as “maintenant!” (now!) and “maman” (mother) and local color like the karite tree and shea nuts place the story in a French-speaking African country. Every morning, Gie Gie and her mother perch rings of cloth and large clay pots on their heads and walk miles to the nearest well to fetch murky, brown water. The story is inspired by model Georgie Badiel, who founded the Georgie Badiel Foundation to make clean water accessible to West Africans. The details in Reynolds’ expressive illustrations highlight the beauty of the West African landscape and of Princess Gie Gie, with her cornrowed and beaded hair, but will also help readers understand that everyone needs clean water—from the children of Burkina Faso to the children of Flint, Michigan.
Though told by two outsiders to the culture, this timely and well-crafted story will educate readers on the preciousness of potable water. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-17258-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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