A broad, appreciative overview, well worth lingering over.
Immersive illustrations highlight an introduction to forest types worldwide.
Zommer follows Our Islands (2025) with an equally sweeping tour of woodlands—from Brazil’s Juruá-Purus rainforest to Finland’s frosty Hossa National Park and the bamboo forests of the Minshan and Qinling Mountains in China. Along with capturing a vivid general sense of each forest’s distinctive look, he tucks in lively images of local flora and fauna, interspersed with glib, tour guide-style observations about the habitat’s characteristic sights and features. Using Sherwood Forest as his example of an “Ancient Woodland,” for instance, he points to its “majorly old” (and recently deceased) Major Oak. Zommer also frequently pauses between specific stops for more generic scenes and considerations of broader topics such as rainforest layers, Indigenous forest peoples, and the role forests, as our “big, leafy lungs,” play in regulating climate. Inviting closer looks at the illustrations, he tucks in hidden items to spot, too (providing a key at the end). His closing world map leaves large areas unmarked but does show where his chosen locations are found. And a preceding illustration carrying the suggestion that readers might join a company of racially diverse hikers in enjoying forest walks brings the topic to a personal level.
A broad, appreciative overview, well worth lingering over. (glossary, index) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9780500653692
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe.
An introduction to gravity.
The book opens with the most iconic demonstration of gravity, an apple falling. Throughout, Herz tackles both huge concepts—how gravity compresses atoms to form stars and how black holes pull all kinds of matter toward them—and more concrete ones: how gravity allows you to jump up and then come back down to the ground. Gravity narrates in spare yet lyrical verse, explaining how it creates planets and compresses atoms and comparing itself to a hug. “My embrace is tight enough that you don’t float like a balloon, but loose enough that you can run and leap and play.” Gravity personifies itself at times: “I am stubborn—the bigger things are, the harder I pull.” Beautiful illustrations depict swirling planets and black holes alongside racially diverse children playing, running, and jumping, all thanks to gravity. Thorough backmatter discusses how Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity and explains Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. While at times Herz’s explanations may be a bit too technical for some readers, burgeoning scientists will be drawn in.
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668936849
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
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