Breathtaking visuals and a compelling story seamlessly integrate conservation facts.
An uplifting story about wildlife protection in Vietnam (and originally published there) inspired by real events from the wildlife-conservationist author’s life.
After witnessing a brutal bear-bile extraction as a young girl, Chang becomes determined to become a wildlife conservationist. These dreams are met with mockery and derision due to Chang’s age and gender as well as cultural perceptions about conservation as a career. Despite these challenges, Chang persists with studying and is accepted as a volunteer at Cat Tien National Park, narrating it all in a conversational tone that is equally genial in recounting events and presenting fascinating animal facts. At the park, Chang learns how to care for rescued animals and starts volunteering with Free The Bears, another organization. During this time, a young sun bear cub named Sorya is brought to the center from a bear-bile farm. Chang works with Sorya to prepare her for eventual release back into the wild. Zdung’s use of watercolors in his frankly gorgeous illustrations enhances the rainforest setting, and the portrayals of its animal inhabitants are the epitome of wild and free. While the natural images tend to be realistic, the human characters are drawn in a manga-influenced style with elements like oversized eyes, large sweat drops, and speed lines. This blending of styles and varied panel layouts creates dynamic spreads and stunning page turns. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Breathtaking visuals and a compelling story seamlessly integrate conservation facts. (illustrator's note, about the creators) (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-35363-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts.
From a Caldecott and Sibert honoree, an invitation to take a mind-expanding journey from the surface of our planet to the furthest reaches of the observable cosmos.
Though Chin’s assumption that we are even capable of understanding the scope of the universe is quixotic at best, he does effectively lead viewers on a journey that captures a sense of its scale. Following the model of Kees Boeke’s classic Cosmic View: The Universe in Forty Jumps (1957), he starts with four 8-year-old sky watchers of average height (and different racial presentations). They peer into a telescope and then are comically startled by the sudden arrival of an ostrich that is twice as tall…and then a giraffe that is over twice as tall as that…and going onward and upward, with ellipses at each page turn connecting the stages, past our atmosphere and solar system to the cosmic web of galactic superclusters. As he goes, precisely drawn earthly figures and features in the expansive illustrations give way to ever smaller celestial bodies and finally to glimmering swirls of distant lights against gulfs of deep black before ultimately returning to his starting place. A closing recap adds smaller images and additional details. Accompanying the spare narrative, valuable side notes supply specific lengths or distances and define their units of measure, accurately explain astronomical phenomena, and close with the provocative observation that “the observable universe is centered on us, but we are not in the center of the entire universe.”
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts. (afterword, websites, further reading) (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4623-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care.
In 1977, the oil carrier Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into a formerly pristine Alaskan ocean inlet, killing millions of birds, animals, and fish. Despite a cleanup, crude oil is still there.
The Winters foretold the destructive powers of the atomic bomb allusively in The Secret Project (2017), leaving the actuality to the backmatter. They make no such accommodations to young audiences in this disturbing book. From the dark front cover, on which oily blobs conceal a seabird, to the rescuer’s sad face on the back, the mother-son team emphasizes the disaster. A relatively easy-to-read and poetically heightened text introduces the situation. Oil is pumped from the Earth “all day long, all night long, / day after day, year after year” in “what had been unspoiled land, home to Native people // and thousands of caribou.” The scale of extraction is huge: There’s “a giant pipeline” leading to “enormous ships.” Then, crash. Rivers of oil gush out over three full-bleed wordless pages. Subsequent scenes show rocks, seabirds, and sea otters covered with oil. Finally, 30 years later, animals have returned to a cheerful scene. “But if you lift a rock… // oil / seeps / up.” For an adult reader, this is heartbreaking. How much more difficult might this be for an animal-loving child?
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 9-12)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3077-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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