Per the series promise, a slightly “unhinged” celebration of daring diving developments.
A rhyming account of the invention of the bathysphere.
Fascinated by the ocean depths, Will Beebe dives in to invent a way to explore beyond the shallow depths that diving equipment of the 1920s allows. His designs and “silly proposals and doodles” from other inventors go “straight to the trashcan,” however, until Otis Barton gets involved. Barton, an engineer, “[has] his heart set on—PLOP!—disappearing / Beneath the sea’s surface and breaking all records / For deepness” and knows that Beebe’s “soda-can shape” will crumple under deepwater pressure. Beebe adopts Barton’s stronger, spherical design, and, luckily, Barton’s family is rich enough to fund its construction. Despite personality clashes, minor design failures, seasickness, and the Great Depression, Beebe and Barton create a two-person vessel that descends almost a half mile. Today, the original bathysphere is displayed outside the New York (City) Aquarium. Next to Barb Rosenstock’s prose account in Otis & Will Discover the Deep (illustrated by Katherine Roy, 2018), Enik’s playfully rhyming couplets feel lightweight, but the backmatter, which includes the bathysphere’s schematic, a timeline of human diving progress, and a biography of Gloria Hollister (the first mate and recorder on deck), provides some heft. Cartoon illustrations portray Beebe, Barton, and Hollister as white adults.
Per the series promise, a slightly “unhinged” celebration of daring diving developments. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7643-5793-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Schiffer
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf