A fine introduction for whale aficionados and a clarion call for climate change awareness.
Meet a beautiful denizen of the sea.
Bowhead whales are the longest-living mammals on Earth—they can live for over 200 years—and spend their entire, mostly solitary, lives in and around the Arctic. This well-written nonfiction title provides an up-close–and-personal look at one endearing female bowhead, drawing young readers in and evoking empathy. Boersma and Pyenson recount the various perils she faces, including predators and changes to her habitat due to technological advances and climate change. The economical text describes the majestic creature’s characteristics and behavior and incrementally tracks her development from infancy to adulthood through four stages, each spanning 50 years. The book’s warm portrayal of the very vocal whale is occasionally slightly anthropomorphic, but this enhances its appeal to the young target audience, as does the liberal use of evocative onomatopoeic words, rendered in large capitals. The pleasant realistic illustrations, created with watercolor, gouache, and colored inks and finished digitally, are soft and lively and appropriately emphasize blues, whites, and the vastness of the ocean. Sharp-eyed readers will note various Arctic animals who share the bowhead’s habitat. Details in the scenery, both on land and at sea, reflect the various historical periods. Excellent backmatter material includes additional facts about bowheads and information about other Arctic creatures, the Northwest Passage, and Inuit people in the Arctic. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A fine introduction for whale aficionados and a clarion call for climate change awareness. (author's note) (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 24, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-80302-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on.
Sharpson offers so-fish-ticated readers a heads up about the true terror of the seas.
The title says it all. Our unseen narrator is just fine with other animals: mammals. Reptiles. Even birds. But fish? Don’t trust them! First off, the rules always seem to change with fish. Some live in fresh water; some reside in salt water. Some have gills, while others have lungs. You can never see what they’re up to, since they hang out underwater, and they’re always eating those poor, innocent crabs. Soon, the narrator introduces readers to Jeff, a vacant-eyed yellow fish—but don’t be fooled! Jeff’s “the craftiest fish of all.” All fish are, apparently, hellbent on world domination, the narrator warns. “DON’T TRUST FISH!” Finally, at the tail end, we get a sly glimpse of our unreliable narrator. Readers needn’t be ichthyologists to appreciate Sharpson’s meticulous comic timing. (“Ships always sink at sea. They never sink on land. Isn’t that strange?”) His delightful text, filled to the brim with jokes that read aloud brilliantly, pairs perfectly with Santat’s art, which shifts between extreme realism and goofy hilarity. He also fills the book with his own clever gags (such as an image of Gilligan’s Island’s S.S. Minnow going down and a bottle of sauce labeled “Surly Chik’n Srir’racha’r”).
A ribald and uproarious warning to those unschooled in fishy goings-on. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780593616673
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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