In a word: Wonderful.
A spelling-bee champ welcomes readers to the zesty, awesome world of wording wizardry.
Whether you recite it from A to Z or in reverse, the alphabet’s cool, not to mention the words you can build by combining its letters in myriad ways. Such is the premise of this cheerful book that lists 26 empowering words, from Z to A—Avant-garde’s own initials—each beginning with a different letter of the alphabet (except X, for which extraordinary subs). Each word is a favorite of the teen author, who in 2021 became the first African American to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. The word list begins and ends with the author’s own names (Zaila, meaning “mighty, powerful,” and Avant-garde, “to be at the forefront”). On each page, the same word appears three to five times, printed in boldfaced type, alongside brief, thought-provoking, upbeat observations. The words cavort spiritedly on the page in hyphenated form (“L-A-U-G-H-T-E-R,” “K-I-N-D-N-E-S-S”), inviting readers to draw their pronunciations out slowly, as if to playfully savor their “feel.” A pithy quotation from luminaries such as Albert Einstein, Sitting Bull, and Shakira accompanies each word. Energetic, bold illustrations featuring dynamic patterns and characters diverse in skin tone, age, and physical ability greatly enliven the book. Readers should be strongly encouraged to create personal word lists and commentaries. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
In a word: Wonderful. (the origins of Zaila’s words of wonder) (Picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: June 27, 2023
ISBN: 9780593568934
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
Ambitious in concept, pedestrian at best in execution.
Visits to 10 types of forest, with portraits of select native wildlife and audio soundscapes.
Though the lineup does include an unusual “Desert Forest” on Yemen’s Socotra Island and locales for the rest of the more-common woody habitats are likewise specified, Hunter’s generic, artificially populous panoramas are neither placed on a map nor presented in any particular order. His wildlife characters, six or seven per spread, pose naturalistically but are sometimes seen from distorted perspectives—a wood mouse in England’s deciduous New Forest looks, for instance, almost as big as the donkey—making it hard to compare relative sizes. Numbered, descriptive captions squeezed in among the figures highlight the animals’ distinctive calls or noises, snatches of which can also be heard on the enclosed sound chip. Pressing hard and repeatedly on a designated spot, one per spread, results in a uselessly brief audio sequence of fragmentary hoots, squeaks, snorts, chirps, and general rustling presented, supposedly, in left-to-right order. Oddly, several of the chosen animals, such as snowshoe hares, okapi, and blue-baboon spiders, do not vocalize and so are sonically represented (if at all) only by magnified leaf chewing or some similar contrivance. The sound chip features replaceable batteries but no on/off switch.
Ambitious in concept, pedestrian at best in execution. (Informational novelty. 7-10)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78603-327-7
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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