On an inhospitable Hawaiian mountaintop, using one of the most powerful optical telescopes in the world, astronomer Dr. Geoffrey Marcy and others search for planets outside our solar system. When the first one was discovered in 1995, he and his team corroborated the discovery; since then they have found nearly half the 400 planets identified so far, using methods they developed. Colorfully illustrated with photographs, diagrams and artists’ renderings, this description of a scientist’s work concentrates on this relatively new branch of astronomy. Debut author Wittenstein includes chapters on Marcy’s background and preparation, the techniques he and others use and the history of extrasolar planet discovery. Sidebars and full-page explanations, set off by a differently colored background, introduce other scientists in this field and define and explain important concepts and parallel investigations. The author’s explanations are clear, well organized and interestingly written with plenty of quotations from the scientists, but the material is not simple. An extensive bibliography provides books and websites for middle- and high-school readers as well as their teachers. (glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 12-16)
Pub Date: March 15, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59078-592-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Who is next in the ocean food chain? Pallotta has a surprising answer in this picture book glimpse of one curious boy. Danny, fascinated by plankton, takes his dory and rows out into the ocean, where he sees shrimp eating those plankton, fish sand eels eating shrimp, mackerel eating fish sand eels, bluefish chasing mackerel, tuna after bluefish, and killer whales after tuna. When an enormous humpbacked whale arrives on the scene, Danny’s dory tips over and he has to swim for a large rock or become—he worries’someone’s lunch. Surreal acrylic illustrations in vivid blues and red extend the story of a small boy, a small boat, and a vast ocean, in which the laws of the food chain are paramount. That the boy has been bathtub-bound during this entire imaginative foray doesn’t diminish the suspense, and the facts Pallotta presents are solidly researched. A charming fish tale about the one—the boy—that got away. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-88106-075-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Updike has revised a set of 12 short poems, one per month, first published in 1965, and Hyman’s busy, finely detailed scenes replace the original edition’s illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. The verses are written in a child’s voice—“The chickadees/Grow plump on seed/That Mother pours/Where they can feed”—and commemorate seasonal weather, flowers, food, and holidays. In the paintings a multiracial, all-ages cast does the same in comfortable, semi-rural New England surroundings, sitting at a table cutting out paper hearts, wading through reeds with a net under a frog’s watchful eye, picnicking, contemplating a leafless tree outside for “November” and a decorated one inside for “December.” The thoughts and language are slightly elevated but not beyond the ken of children, and the pictures enrich the poetry with specific, often amusing, incidents. (Poetry. 6-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-8234-1445-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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