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 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
An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort.
A look at the unique ways that 11 globe-spanning animal species construct their homes.
Each creature garners two double-page spreads, which Cherrix enlivens with compelling and at-times jaw-dropping facts. The trapdoor spider constructs a hidden burrow door from spider silk. Sticky threads, fanning from the entrance, vibrate “like a silent doorbell” when walked upon by unwitting insect prey. Prairie dogs expertly dig communal burrows with designated chambers for “sleeping, eating, and pooping.” The largest recorded “town” occupied “25,000 miles and housed as many as 400 million prairie dogs!” Female ants are “industrious insects” who can remove more than a ton of dirt from their colony in a year. Cathedral termites use dirt and saliva to construct solar-cooled towers 30 feet high. Sasaki’s lively pictures borrow stylistically from the animal compendiums of mid-20th-century children’s lit; endpapers and display type elegantly suggest the blues of cyanotypes and architectural blueprints. Jarringly, the lead spread cheerfully extols the prowess of the corals of the Great Barrier Reef, “the world’s largest living structure,” while ignoring its accelerating, human-abetted destruction. Calamitously, the honeybee hive is incorrectly depicted as a paper-wasps’ nest, and the text falsely states that chewed beeswax “hardens into glue to shape the hive.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort. (selected sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-5625-9
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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