An excellent, child-friendly introduction to a global issue.
This picture-book biography of Jadav Payeng, hailed as “the forest man of India,” details his effort to single-handedly reforest his river island home.
In the opening pages of the book, 14-year-old Payeng is distraught by the destruction that deforestation and erosion are causing in his community, an island on the mighty Brahmaputra River in northeastern India. Every day after taking care of his chores, he plants trees on a sandbar laid bare by erosion. For over 35 years he does this, planting first bamboo trees and then other species. Today, Molai Forest is a lush woodland that is no longer desolate: It is home to elephants, rhinoceroses, deer, wild boars, vultures, and tigers. Widdowson’s simple, brightly colored art unfolds as the text does, showcasing stark, eroded shorelines and stranded animals in the opening pages, then verdant coastal forests and smiling animals at the book’s close. Additional backmatter details Payeng’s continued commitment to the revitalization of this fragile ecosystem along with further biographical information, such as his receiving one of India’s highest civilian awards, the Padma Shri. This is the second such picture book about Payeng, following The Boy Who Grew a Forest, by Sophia Gholz and illustrated by Kayla Harren (2019). Payeng is a member of the Mishing, a marginalized tribal community in India; as climate change greatly affects Indigenous and vulnerable communities, this coverage is both welcome and necessary.
An excellent, child-friendly introduction to a global issue. (fast facts, glossary, further reading) (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4867-1816-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Flowerpot Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Enticing and eco-friendly.
Why and how to make a rain garden.
Having watched through their classroom window as a “rooftop-rushing, gutter-gushing” downpour sloppily flooded their streets and playground, several racially diverse young children follow their tan-skinned teacher outside to lay out a shallow drainage ditch beneath their school’s downspout, which leads to a patch of ground, where they plant flowers (“native ones with tough, thick roots,” Schaub specifies) to absorb the “mucky runoff” and, in time, draw butterflies and other wildlife. The author follows up her lilting rhyme with more detailed explanations of a rain garden’s function and construction, including a chart to help determine how deep to make the rain garden and a properly cautionary note about locating a site’s buried utility lines before starting to dig; she concludes with a set of leads to online information sources. Gómez goes more for visual appeal than realism. In her scenes, a group of smiling, round-headed, very small children in rain gear industriously lay large stones along a winding border with little apparent effort; nevertheless, her images of the little ones planting generic flowers that are tall and lush just a page turn later do make the outdoorsy project look like fun.
Enticing and eco-friendly. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781324052357
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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