WHAT HAPPENS WHILE YOU SLEEP

Name: WHAT HAPPENS WHILE YOU SLEEP
Author: Anna Russelmann
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4446-9

by Anna Russelmann & Judith Buchner ; illustrated by Anna Russelmann ; translated by David Henry Wilson ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 4, 2021

A strange fancy—but, from a certain angle, not a brainless one.

bookshelf

When Conshus lowers the eyelids, it’s time for Hippo and Campus to spring into action.

Reflecting what goes on—in part, sort of—in little Malu’s brain once she snoozes off, Russelmann envisions two busy figures in stocking caps bustling about, sorting the day’s many sounds, bottles of smells, and envelopes of images into variously labeled storage boxes such as “Danger” and “Foods I Like.” At the same time, they add strings of letters and numbers (more every day) to a “tree of knowledge” with great, spreading branches. An “L” that is facing the right way replaces one that’s backward on the tree while a special picture of Malu with Mom and Dad and elephants at the zoo goes into a treasure chest for quick access. Less-valuable ones, like the umpteenth view of daisies, go into a big trash can. Racing to finish, Hippo delivers a picture of Teddy Bear in the bathroom to supervisor Conshus in her tower just as Malu wakes, stretches…and remembers just where she left her bear! Though Malu, her parents, and all three figures inside her head are light-skinned, her name, at least, hints at a non-European origin. Although this German import doesn’t tell anything like the whole sleep story, it does at least offer a conceptual framework for broader first introductions like Elaine Scott’s All About Sleep From A to ZZZZ (illustrated by John O’Brien, 2008).

A strange fancy—but, from a certain angle, not a brainless one. (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: May 4, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-7358-4446-9

Page Count: 48

Publisher: NorthSouth

Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

bookshelf

BUTT OR FACE?

by Kari Lavelle ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2023

A gleeful game for budding naturalists.

bookshelf

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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
ODE TO GRAPEFRUIT
by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Bryan Collier

- BOOK REVIEW
WE MOVE THE WORLD
by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Nabi H. Ali

bookshelf

THE WONDERFUL WISDOM OF ANTS

by Philip Bunting ; illustrated by Philip Bunting ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 19, 2024

Lighthearted and informative, though the premise may be a bit stretched.

bookshelf

An amiable introduction to our thrifty, sociable, teeming insect cousins.

Bunting notes that all the ants on Earth weigh roughly the same as all the people and observes that ants (like, supposedly, us) love recycling, helping others, and taking “micronaps.” They, too, live in groups, and their “superpower” is an ability to work together to accomplish amazing things. Bunting goes on to describe different sorts of ants within the colony (“Drone. Male. Does no housework. Takes to the sky. Reproduces. Drops dead”), how they communicate using pheromones, and how they get from egg to adult. He concludes that we could learn a lot from them that would help us leave our planet in better shape than it was when we arrived. If he takes a pass on mentioning a few less positive shared traits (such as our tendency to wage war on one another), still, his comparisons do invite young readers to observe the natural world more closely and to reflect on our connections to it. In the simple illustrations, generic black ants look up at viewers with little googly eyes while scurrying about the pages gathering food, keeping nests clean, and carrying outsized burdens.

Lighthearted and informative, though the premise may be a bit stretched. (Informational picture book. 6-8)