The parts are better than the whole, but the work deserves points for ambition.
A history of the universe, told multiple ways.
In Wada’s dramatically lit illustrations, an awed child of indeterminate ancestry holds a small, sparkling ball that bursts into starry, spread-filling swirls. The view then narrows from galaxies to a certain small planet’s violent beginnings. In time, early life appears, explodes into extravagant spiral rivers of more developed forms, and gives way at last to a final close-up of stars in the dazzled child’s eyes. Savage accompanies these images in swirling lines of equally lyrical commentary that focus less on specifics than the continuing and continual “strangeness & wonder” of it all, with “everything / everything / always beginning.” Then she retells the tale twice—once in an illustrated timeline with matter-of-fact annotations that begins with the Big Bang and ends with the appearance of modern humans about 300,000 years ago, and again in a straight prose account that connects the entire story to readers: “Everything that has happened,” she writes, “has led to YOU. The story of the universe is your story.” Despite the different emphases, the parts don’t really make up a whole; rather than build toward something, the sections seem largely repetitive. Still, some children may be carried away by the imaginative flight, and others will enjoy the info dump or the ego bolstering.
The parts are better than the whole, but the work deserves points for ambition. (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781771648431
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Greystone Kids
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe.
An introduction to gravity.
The book opens with the most iconic demonstration of gravity, an apple falling. Throughout, Herz tackles both huge concepts—how gravity compresses atoms to form stars and how black holes pull all kinds of matter toward them—and more concrete ones: how gravity allows you to jump up and then come back down to the ground. Gravity narrates in spare yet lyrical verse, explaining how it creates planets and compresses atoms and comparing itself to a hug. “My embrace is tight enough that you don’t float like a balloon, but loose enough that you can run and leap and play.” Gravity personifies itself at times: “I am stubborn—the bigger things are, the harder I pull.” Beautiful illustrations depict swirling planets and black holes alongside racially diverse children playing, running, and jumping, all thanks to gravity. Thorough backmatter discusses how Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity and explains Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. While at times Herz’s explanations may be a bit too technical for some readers, burgeoning scientists will be drawn in.
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668936849
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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