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LAZY LITTLE LOAFERS

Name: LAZY LITTLE LOAFERS
Author: Susan Orlean
ISBN: 978-0-8109-7027-4

by Susan Orlean & illustrated by G. Brian Karas ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2008

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Struggling off to school beneath a huge backpack, a disgruntled child fulminates about how her urban world seems filled with babies lolling idly about. Following a particular specimen (who turns out to be her own sibling), she delivers acid comments about infants sporting sunglasses, learning to walk—“Is it possible they don’t work but still go out for a three-bottle lunch and get a little tipsy?”—and spending long days hanging out in Central Park. Well-decorated with baby ads and posters, Karas’s paint-and-photocollage street scenes form a backdrop for squads of happy toddlers and leave the narrator, who ruefully concludes that babies really don’t work because they’re too smart, peering out of the school door as a passing rugrat delivers a Bronx cheer. A chuckle-inducing rant in the fine old tradition of Martha Alexander’s Nobody Asked Me If I Wanted A Baby Sister (1971). (Picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-8109-7027-4

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Abrams

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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THE DOG THAT DUG FOR DINOSAURS

by Shirley Redmond & illustrated by Simon Sullivan ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2004

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This easy reader for children reading at the fluency level recounts the story of a girl named Mary Ann Anning and her dog, Tray. They lived on the coast of England in the early 1800s, although the time frame is given only as “a long, long time ago.” Mary Ann and Tray became famous for their discoveries of fossils, including dinosaur bones. They discovered the first pterodactyl found in England, and the name was assigned to their fossil. The story focuses a little too much on the dog, and the title misses a great opportunity to completely acknowledge a girl accomplishing something important in the scientific world, especially in a much earlier era and without formal training or education. Despite this drawback, both Mary Ann and Tray are appealing characters and the discovery of the fossils and subsequent notice from scientists, collectors, and even royalty is appealing and well written. Sullivan’s illustrations provide intriguing period details in costumes, tools, and buildings, as well as a clever front endpaper of fossil-strewn ground covered with muddy paw prints. (Easy reader. 6-8)

Pub Date: July 1, 2004

ISBN: 0-689-85708-X

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Aladdin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2004

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

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PROFESSOR ASTRO CAT'S SPACE ROCKETS

From the Professor Astro Cat series

by Dominic Walliman ; illustrated by Ben Newman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 4, 2018

Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit.

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The bubble-helmeted feline explains what rockets do and the role they have played in sending people (and animals) into space.

Addressing a somewhat younger audience than in previous outings (Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, 2013, etc.), Astro Cat dispenses with all but a light shower of “factoroids” to describe how rockets work. A highly selective “History of Space Travel” follows—beginning with a crew of fruit flies sent aloft in 1947, later the dog Laika (her dismal fate left unmentioned), and the human Yuri Gagarin. Then it’s on to Apollo 11 in 1969; the space shuttles Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger (the fates of the latter two likewise elided); the promise of NASA’s next-gen Orion and the Space Launch System; and finally vague closing references to other rockets in the works for local tourism and, eventually, interstellar travel. In the illustrations the spacesuited professor, joined by a mouse and cat in similar dress, do little except float in space and point at things. Still, the art has a stylish retro look, and portraits of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford diversify an otherwise all-white, all-male astronaut corps posing heroically or riding blocky, geometric spacecraft across starry reaches.

Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)