With its undistinguished poetry but warm feelings and appealing paintings, this is an additional choice for some home...
Snuggling families, whether human or animal, are comforting and reassuring presences at bedtime.
Bookended by sentimentalized portraits of a white mother and two small white children in their pajamas, the verse starts off with exalted language: “When Mother Earth bids goodnight, / she casts her shafts of silver light. / She says: ‘Goodnight, my precious ones.’ / Nature’s song has just begun.” The scene switches to the natural world and successive double-page spreads are filled with lush, vibrantly colored paintings that usually show a parent animal and its young one(s) at night in their environment. Rhyming couplets describe each scene, not always smoothly: “Nene young quieting, / get warm below their mama’s wing,” reads the text as the illustration presents goslings and their mother among hibiscus blooms. The animal paintings are realistic and engaging, but there is no sense of accurate scale. The animals included are threatened or endangered by issues including human encroachment, climate change, and animal predators. These are described briefly in the backmatter. There is an unfortunate editorial mistake; a description of a red-tailed Amazon parrot has been substituted for the toucan pictured in the primary text. The book ends with an upbeat page, inexplicably lacking illustrations but detailing a few animals whose numbers have recently rebounded. There is no map and only one web resource.
With its undistinguished poetry but warm feelings and appealing paintings, this is an additional choice for some home libraries. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-88448-557-5
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
An ideal lead-in to more specific guides to aquarium setup and fish care.
A first introduction to our planet’s finny residents, particularly the decidedly uncommon goldfish.
Preceded by an entire piscatorial ABC that extends over six pages, two children of color lecture an audience of house pets (and readers) about such typical fishy features as scales and gills—properly noting that some fish, like certain eels, have no scales and some, like hagfish, no bony spines. The two then zero in on goldfish, explaining that they are easier to keep at home than tropical fish, originated long ago in China, can recognize the faces of people who bring them food, and with proper care live 25 years. All of this information is presented in a mix of dialogue balloons and single lines of commentary in block letters, accompanying cleanly drawn cartoon illustrations that alternate between a domestic setting and labeled portraits of various fish rendered in fine, exact detail. With easily digestible doses of biological and historical background, common-sense cautionary notes, and a buoyant tone, this is an appealing dive for newly independent readers out to enhance the household menagerie.
An ideal lead-in to more specific guides to aquarium setup and fish care. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943145-15-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: TOON Books & Graphics
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
Tempting fare for young dino-devotees.
A gallery of prehistoric marine reptiles, their prey, and their predators.
Aiming for newly independent readers, Thomson describes in short sentences and simple language how plesiosaurs—an order that included both long- and short-necked varieties—hunted, got about with their flippers (“Maybe it paddled like a duck. Maybe it glided like a sea turtle”), gave birth to live young, and succumbed at last to an extinction event 65 million years ago. She provides broader context with comments about general features common to land and marine reptiles alike and closes with summary facts about other marine reptiles of both the past and present. Details both tantalize (the “smooth stones” in a plesiosaur’s stomach “may have helped to crush food”) and enlighten through concrete example: “Some plesiosaurs were only a bit longer than a broomstick. Some could’ve stretched halfway across a basketball court.” Throughout, Thomson carefully makes sure to emphasize that there is much we still do not know. Plant juices up the presentation with dramatic (labeled) portraits of thrillingly toothy predators leaving trails of blood in the water as they eat and are eaten.
Tempting fare for young dino-devotees. (print, video, and web resource lists) (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: July 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-58089-542-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
