More science-y than scientific, this encyclopedic effort is ideal for quiet browsing and family sharing.
Emulating its predecessor Creaturepedia (2015) in format and whimsy, Barman’s latest exerts a quirky organization upon more than 600 plants.
In 49 alphabetically arranged sections of three to six pages each, plants are grouped by color, size, habitat, and even smell. “The Confused Fruits”—cucumber, eggplant, and zucchini among them—“think they’re vegetables” (each contains seeds, a characteristic of fruit). Illustrating “The Healers,” people in medieval clothing proffer branches of Saint-John’s-wort (for “mild depression”) or sip lemon-balm tea (for calming nerves). “The Old Timers” groups trees known for their longevity—olive, ginkgo, giant sequoia—inserting tortoises, dinosaurs, and crocs for fun. With a few exceptions (echinacea, for instance) the plants are identified by their common names. The sparse text offers facts, lore, and brief definitions. The focus here is on Barman’s wry, bright, inventive digital compositions, which yield both a stylized fidelity to plant forms and goofy visual jokes. “Garden vegetables” depicts root, leaf, and seed crops along with a mole gleefully terrifying nearby earthworms. With the exception of several ancient Egyptians, two brown-skinned people sniffing fragrant blossoms, and three brown hands reaching toward “prickly” plants, the cartoonish humans appear to be white. There’s little regard for scale or specifically discrete geographical habitats—but that’s not Barman’s intention. In the appendix of leaf shapes, information about the margins and veins of leaves appears, bafflingly, to be missing.
More science-y than scientific, this encyclopedic effort is ideal for quiet browsing and family sharing. (contents, index) (Nonfiction. 5-8)Pub Date: May 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-78603-139-6
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again.
Cece loves asking “why” and “what if.”
Her parents encourage her, as does her science teacher, Ms. Curie (a wink to adult readers). When Cece and her best friend, Isaac, pair up for a science project, they choose zoology, brainstorming questions they might research. They decide to investigate whether dogs eat vegetables, using Cece’s schnauzer, Einstein, and the next day they head to Cece’s lab (inside her treehouse). Wearing white lab coats, the two observe their subject and then offer him different kinds of vegetables, alone and with toppings. Cece is discouraged when Einstein won’t eat them. She complains to her parents, “Maybe I’m not a real scientist after all….Our project was boring.” Just then, Einstein sniffs Cece’s dessert, leading her to try a new way to get Einstein to eat vegetables. Cece learns that “real scientists have fun finding answers too.” Harrison’s clean, bright illustrations add expression and personality to the story. Science report inserts are reminiscent of The Magic Schoolbus books, with less detail. Biracial Cece is a brown, freckled girl with curly hair; her father is white, and her mother has brown skin and long, black hair; Isaac and Ms. Curie both have pale skin and dark hair. While the book doesn’t pack a particularly strong emotional or educational punch, this endearing protagonist earns a place on the children’s STEM shelf.
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again. (glossary) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-249960-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
