For the dedicated nonfiction fan, this picture dictionary introduces media that are better experienced than described.
This entry in a series named for Leonardo da Vinci, an “original Renaissance man,” describes the many forms and functions of art in today’s world.
This colorful book shows very young children what art is and what different kinds of artists do. The author begins by listing several kinds of art as they appear in our lives, then describes historical art forms, such as cave painting and pottery design. Next, entire pages and spreads feature particular forms of art, artists, and materials, including sculpture, writing, drama, graphic design, architecture, and music. The role of computers in the creation of art today is mentioned, and readers are encouraged to imagine themselves as artists. The cartoon-style pictures show cheerful, ethnically diverse children in mainstream American settings creating art that often mirrors well-known pieces and styles of the Western tradition. A jazz band is included on the music page. An author’s note at the end of the book introduces six great artists of the past; three of these are women, but five of the six are white. While children throughout the book are representative of America’s diversity, readers will have to look elsewhere for inclusion of diverse contributions to the world of art. Volumes on math and science are similarly formulated but wordier. A page on anthropology in the science volume assumes a cultural perspective that all readers may not share.
For the dedicated nonfiction fan, this picture dictionary introduces media that are better experienced than described. (glossary, author’s note) (Nonfiction. 4-8)Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-4236-4873-4
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit.
The bubble-helmeted feline explains what rockets do and the role they have played in sending people (and animals) into space.
Addressing a somewhat younger audience than in previous outings (Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, 2013, etc.), Astro Cat dispenses with all but a light shower of “factoroids” to describe how rockets work. A highly selective “History of Space Travel” follows—beginning with a crew of fruit flies sent aloft in 1947, later the dog Laika (her dismal fate left unmentioned), and the human Yuri Gagarin. Then it’s on to Apollo 11 in 1969; the space shuttles Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger (the fates of the latter two likewise elided); the promise of NASA’s next-gen Orion and the Space Launch System; and finally vague closing references to other rockets in the works for local tourism and, eventually, interstellar travel. In the illustrations the spacesuited professor, joined by a mouse and cat in similar dress, do little except float in space and point at things. Still, the art has a stylish retro look, and portraits of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford diversify an otherwise all-white, all-male astronaut corps posing heroically or riding blocky, geometric spacecraft across starry reaches.
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-911171-55-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A broad, if hardly more than skin-deep, introduction to the topic.
Four double-foldout spreads literally extend this first gander at our body’s insides and outsides—to jumbo, if not quite life, size.
Labels, basic facts, and one-sentence comments surround full-length cartoon images of the skeleton, musculature, and major sections of the body on the foldouts. Selected parts from the brain on down to blood cells are covered on the leaves in between. Lacey dishes out explanations of major body systems and processes in resolutely nontechnical language: “When you eat, food goes on a long twisty journey, zigzagging through tubes and turning into a soupy mush for your body to use.” It’s lightly spiced with observations that, for instance, the “gluteus maximus” is the largest muscle or the spine is made up of “vertebrae.” So light is the once-over, however, that the lymphatic, renal, and most of the endocrine systems escape notice (kidneys, where are you?). Moreover, though printed on durable card stock, the foldouts make for unwieldy handling, and on some pages, images are so scattered that successive stages of various processes require numbering. Still, Web links on the publisher’s page will presumably help to cover the gaps (unavailable for review). An overview of human development from fertilization to adulthood precedes a closing flurry of height extremes and other “Amazing body facts” that provide proper closure for this elementary survey.
A broad, if hardly more than skin-deep, introduction to the topic. (Nonfiction. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7945-3596-4
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Usborne
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
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