Engaging and true to the message.
Chapin and Forster’s unofficial Earth Day anthem gets a picture-book treatment.
A song that once woke astronauts in space becomes a story told on double-page spreads through White’s whimsical illustrations. A brown-skinned girl with Afro-puff pigtails, a brown-haired White boy, and a white rabbit take off on a bed with a star-patterned coverlet for a dreamlike journey. Carried by a balloon, their flight begins in fantasy. They land on a mushroom planet and admire fanciful constellations. A rocket takes them into space so they can see the spinning Earth. On their return, things are even more surreal. The Earth becomes a spinning record in a landscape with a sleeping lion and dinosaurs. The rabbit rides a dinosaur and, later, helps build one out of snow. Once again carried by the balloon, they float over the river of history, which gradually becomes more dingy and acquires trash. Suddenly the “pretty planet” is a smoke-filled industrial dump. The rabbit weeps. But they set to and clean up (shown effectively in a sequence of panels). Once again, the world is “a holy place.” Appropriately for a picture-book narrative, they end up back in bed. Their room is filled with reminders of their journey. The many allusive details in the illustrations will make adults smile and keep child readers coming back for more. The song is included, scored once for keyboard or guitar and once as a round. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 85.5% of actual size.)
Engaging and true to the message. (Picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4532-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though told by two outsiders to the culture, this timely and well-crafted story will educate readers on the preciousness of...
An international story tackles a serious global issue with Reynolds’ characteristic visual whimsy.
Gie Gie—aka Princess Gie Gie—lives with her parents in Burkina Faso. In her kingdom under “the African sky, so wild and so close,” she can tame wild dogs with her song and make grass sway, but despite grand attempts, she can neither bring the water closer to home nor make it clean. French words such as “maintenant!” (now!) and “maman” (mother) and local color like the karite tree and shea nuts place the story in a French-speaking African country. Every morning, Gie Gie and her mother perch rings of cloth and large clay pots on their heads and walk miles to the nearest well to fetch murky, brown water. The story is inspired by model Georgie Badiel, who founded the Georgie Badiel Foundation to make clean water accessible to West Africans. The details in Reynolds’ expressive illustrations highlight the beauty of the West African landscape and of Princess Gie Gie, with her cornrowed and beaded hair, but will also help readers understand that everyone needs clean water—from the children of Burkina Faso to the children of Flint, Michigan.
Though told by two outsiders to the culture, this timely and well-crafted story will educate readers on the preciousness of potable water. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-17258-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book.
Ada Twist’s incessant stream of questions leads to answers that help solve a neighborhood crisis.
Ada conducts experiments at home to answer questions such as, why does Mom’s coffee smell stronger than Dad’s coffee? Each answer leads to another question, another hypothesis, and another experiment, which is how she goes from collecting data on backyard birds for a citizen-science project to helping Rosie Revere figure out how to get her uncle Ned down from the sky, where his helium-filled “perilous pants” are keeping him afloat. The Questioneers—Rosie the engineer, Iggy Peck the architect, and Ada the scientist—work together, asking questions like scientists. Armed with knowledge (of molecules and air pressure, force and temperature) but more importantly, with curiosity, Ada works out a solution. Ada is a recognizable, three-dimensional girl in this delightfully silly chapter book: tirelessly curious and determined yet easily excited and still learning to express herself. If science concepts aren’t completely clear in this romp, relationships and emotions certainly are. In playful full- and half-page illustrations that break up the text, Ada is black with Afro-textured hair; Rosie and Iggy are white. A closing section on citizen science may inspire readers to get involved in science too; on the other hand, the “Ode to a Gas!” may just puzzle them. Other backmatter topics include the importance of bird study and the threat palm-oil use poses to rainforests.
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3422-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
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
