The simplicity of the narrative and its playful emphasis on and repetition of what is “BIG” seem at odds with the grim...
A childhood love of horses translates into an adult career devoted to learning about and promoting protection for African elephants.
For 40 years, field scientist Cynthia Moss has lived with and studied the elephants of Amboseli National Park in Kenya. Buzzeo, who focused on a fictional elephant calf in My Bibi Always Remembers, illustrated by Mike Wohnoutka (2014), here introduces a real-life elephant scientist who has combined her passion for studying these big animals with activism around the world for a big cause: banning the sale of ivory. Choosing details young readers will understand, the author moves quickly from a description of Moss’ early life to an explanation of how she came to live in Kenya. She goes on to give examples of the kinds of questions the scientist wondered about and what she learned about elephant family behavior. Colorful illustrations, done with colored pencils, acrylic paint, watercolor, ink, and collage and bordered with appropriate designs, add interesting details. There are wide-angled scenes and close-ups of elephants in the wild. But this narrative has a dark side. Many, many elephants have been killed for the ivory in their tusks. The image of an elephant “lying lifeless in the beating sun” and men loading its bloody tusk into a truck filled with other bloody tusks will distress readers of any age.
The simplicity of the narrative and its playful emphasis on and repetition of what is “BIG” seem at odds with the grim reality of ivory poaching, making this a book that may have a hard time finding an audience. (endnote, further reading, additional sources) (Picture book/biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8037-4090-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The legions of fans who over the years have enjoyed dePaola’s autobiographical picture books will welcome this longer gathering of reminiscences. Writing in an authentically childlike voice, he describes watching the new house his father was building go up despite a succession of disasters, from a brush fire to the hurricane of 1938. Meanwhile, he also introduces family, friends, and neighbors, adds Nana Fall River to his already well-known Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs, remembers his first day of school (“ ‘ When do we learn to read?’ I asked. ‘Oh, we don’t learn how to read in kindergarten. We learn to read next year, in first grade.’ ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back next year.’ And I walked right out of school.”), recalls holidays, and explains his indignation when the plot of Disney’s “Snow White” doesn’t match the story he knows. Generously illustrated with vignettes and larger scenes, this cheery, well-knit narrative proves that an old dog can learn new tricks, and learn them surpassingly well. (Autobiography. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-399-23246-X
Page Count: 58
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1999
From McDonald (Tundra Mouse, 1997, etc.), a haunting, dramatic glimpse of the Bone Keeper, a trickster with special transformational powers. Some say Bone Woman is a ghost; some envision her with three heads that view past, present, and future simultaneously. Most, however, call her the “Skeleton Maker” or “Keeper of Bones.” Chanting, shaking, moaning, and wailing, the Bone Keeper is frenzied as she sorts bones; not until the end of the book are readers told, in murmuring lines of free verse, what the Bone Keeper is creating in her mysterious desert cave. Out of the darkness, a wolf springs to life, leaps from the cave, howling, a symbol of resurrection and proof of life’s cyclical nature. Also keeping readers guessing as to the Bone Keeper’s final creation are Karas’s paintings; they, too, require that the final piece of the puzzle be placed before all are understood. The coloring and textures embody the desert setting in the evening, showing the fearsome cave and sandy shadows that wait to release the mystery of the bones. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7894-2559-9
Page Count: 30
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
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