These brief glimpses will whet the appetites of wannabe wanderers of all ages.
A husband-and-wife team, seasoned travelers, artists, and children’s-book creators, offer readers a selection of highlights from 40 years of careful observation of the natural and human worlds in places near and far.
Since the publication of Gorilla Walk in 1999, the Lewins have produced numerous titles reflecting specific adventures, but this is the first joint compilation of their travel experiences. Working continent by continent and beginning with their first safari to the Serengeti, they recount their adventures as if they were conversing with readers; sometimes one talks, sometimes the other. Some anecdotes are humorous and others sobering, especially as they note the effects of 30 years of civil war in Uganda or contrast the experience of a sloth bear in the wild with that of a captive dancing on the street near Delhi. There are scary encounters with lions, elephants, snakes, leeches, and a sharp-billed macaw—not to mention soldiers. There are curious foods—mopani worms and mushrooms the size of pizzas. They travel by horse cart and reindeer sledge and atop an elephant. They admire French bullfighters and Mongolian wrestlers and horses everywhere. They marvel, too, at spectacles close to home: a cattle roundup in Nevada, horseshoe crabs massed on the Delaware shore.
These brief glimpses will whet the appetites of wannabe wanderers of all ages. (Nonfiction. 8 & up)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-59643-616-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
A very nicely conceived title that does not entirely cohere. The authors have compiled a lot of information about hummingbirds: their biological orders, families and species; their habits and patterns; their migrations and physical characteristics. They keep at the forefront what makes these tiny, strong, territorial flyers so fascinating and why they are so astonishingly beautiful (it’s not the colors in the feathers, it’s the way the feathers refract light, like a prism.) Each short chapter discusses a physiological or behavioral characteristic and presents a hummingbird legend or story, woven from various versions of tales from Navajo, Aztec, Taino and other indigenous peoples of the Americas. Yorinks has created all the illustrations with fabric collage—cotton, silk, paints, glitter—from small spots to double-page spreads in which the text floats on the images. The text does not always read smoothly, there is some repetition and the rather odd inclusion of a small quilt with the actor Alan Arkin’s image (he’s a hummingbird fan) that adds to the hodgepodge feel. (foreword, glossary, bibliography, hummingbird sanctuaries, art notes, index) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58089-332-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2011
The author of When Bugs Were Big, Plants Were Strange, and Tetrapods Stalked the Earth (2003) continues her droll but dependable tour of deep prehistory, focusing here on the flora, fauna and fungi of the Silurian and Devonian Periods, approximately 360 to 44 million years ago. This was the time when larger forms of life began to emerge on land, while, among the far richer variety of marine animals, fish wriggled to the top, thanks to newly developed jaws which allowed them “to say good-bye to a monotonous diet of teensy stuff. Now fish could grab, slice and dice to their heart’s content.” By the end, soil, forests and, of course, feet had also appeared. Fearlessly folding in tongue-challenging names and mixing simply drawn reconstructions and maps with goofy flights of fancy—on the first spread Robin Mite and Friar Millipede are caught on a stroll through Sherwood Moss Patch, and on the last, genial nautiloid Amphicyrtoceras plugs the previous volume—Bonner serves up a second heaping course of science that will both stick to the ribs and tickle them. (index, resource lists, time line) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4263-0078-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
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