A visual treat guaranteed to entrance budding mathematicians.
Take a tour and learn about the art of various shapes.
Pale-skinned, bluish-gray-haired Alma, curator at the Museum of Shapes, and her dog Max are planning an exhibit—with a little help from readers. They start with the simplest shape, a point, and build out from a line to an angle to a triangle to other shapes, eventually including an octagon. Along the way, readers learn about curved shapes such as circles or semicircles, as well as three-dimensional shapes. Of these, shapes like cones and cylinders both have circles as their base. Different shapes combine to form items readers will recognize from real life, such as a sailboat and a leaf. Wiggly lines can create objects, too, such as an oak leaf or cooked spaghetti. Völker periodically poses thought-provoking questions to readers, asking them to find all the triangles on a page, to pick a favorite shape, or to determine if a sunset is made up of one circle or two semicircles. Once Alma sets up the exhibit, it’s time for opening night. Völker observes that even outside, the city’s skyline is filled with amazing shapes. This geometric primer is an immaculately balanced combination of geometric information, “I spy” elements, and interaction. The pale backgrounds and consistently clean lines make the different elements pop, whether depicted in bold, light, or variegated shades. Backmatter notes that the idea for the book originated at the real-life Museum of Concrete Art and Design in Ingolstadt, Germany.
A visual treat guaranteed to entrance budding mathematicians. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781800660595
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Cicada Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on...
Continuing from their acclaimed Those Shoes (2007), Boelts and Jones entwine conversations on money, motives, and morality.
This second collaboration between author and illustrator is set within an urban multicultural streetscape, where brown-skinned protagonist Ruben wishes for a bike like his friend Sergio’s. He wishes, but Ruben knows too well the pressure his family feels to prioritize the essentials. While Sergio buys a pack of football cards from Sonny’s Grocery, Ruben must buy the bread his mom wants. A familiar lady drops what Ruben believes to be a $1 bill, but picking it up, to his shock, he discovers $100! Is this Ruben’s chance to get himself the bike of his dreams? In a fateful twist, Ruben loses track of the C-note and is sent into a panic. After finally finding it nestled deep in a backpack pocket, he comes to a sense of moral clarity: “I remember how it was for me when that money that was hers—then mine—was gone.” When he returns the bill to her, the lady offers Ruben her blessing, leaving him with double-dipped emotions, “happy and mixed up, full and empty.” Readers will be pleased that there’s no reward for Ruben’s choice of integrity beyond the priceless love and warmth of a family’s care and pride.
Embedded in this heartwarming story of doing the right thing is a deft examination of the pressures of income inequality on children. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6649-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent.
Wouldn’t the same housecat look very different to a dog and a mouse, a bee and a flea, a fox, a goldfish, or a skunk?
The differences are certainly vast in Wenzel’s often melodramatic scenes. Benign and strokable beneath the hand of a light-skinned child (visible only from the waist down), the brindled cat is transformed to an ugly, skinny slinker in a suspicious dog’s view. In a fox’s eyes it looks like delectably chubby prey but looms, a terrifying monster, over a cowering mouse. It seems a field of colored dots to a bee; jagged vibrations to an earthworm; a hairy thicket to a flea. “Yes,” runs the terse commentary’s refrain, “they all saw the cat.” Words in italics and in capital letters in nearly every line give said commentary a deliberate cadence and pacing: “The cat walked through the world, / with its whiskers, ears, and paws… // and the fish saw A CAT.” Along with inviting more reflective viewers to ruminate about perception and subjectivity, the cat’s perambulations offer elemental visual delights in the art’s extreme and sudden shifts in color, texture, and mood from one page or page turn to the next.
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5013-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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