The best kind of infodump: both fun and redolent with anatomical insights.
An appreciative, up-close examination of a physical feature that has played a fundamental role in animal evolution.
Authored by a British museum devoted to the crab, this offbeat work invites readers to peer into the “bum TIME VORTEX” so that a pair of side-stepping arthropod guides in the cartoon illustrations can shed light on the history, ubiquity, and amazing variety of uses to which butts are and have been put through. Relatively speaking, “patooties are pretty recent inventions,” but as our narrators retrace this 560-million-year story up to today’s “Age of the Anus,” piles of fascinating nuggets emerge—including the arresting claim that in relation to body size, humans have the most “massive badonkadonk” of all. The book offers a clear and logical explanation for that statement. While chortling at animal ends from the multipurpose cloacae of dinosaurs to the “colorful keisters” of modern mandrills—not to mention the synonym-rich closing glossary—young audiences will easily absorb the message that our posteriors are actually essential players in nearly everything our bodies do for us. The rare human figures in the art are mostly brown-skinned.
The best kind of infodump: both fun and redolent with anatomical insights. (timeline) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780711297630
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
Another playful imagination-stretcher.
Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.
As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.
Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781339049052
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More thoughtful, sometimes exhilarating encounters with nature.
In a new entry in the Over and Under series, a paddleboarder glimpses humpback whales leaping, floats over a populous kelp forest, and explores life on a beach and in a tide pool.
In this tale inspired by Messner’s experiences in Monterey Bay in California, a young tan-skinned narrator, along with their light-skinned mom and tan-skinned dad, observes in quiet, lyrical language sights and sounds above and below the sea’s serene surface. Switching perspectives and angles of view and often leaving the family’s red paddleboards just tiny dots bobbing on distant swells, Neal’s broad seascapes depict in precise detail bat stars and anchovies, kelp bass, and sea otters going about their business amid rocky formations and the swaying fronds of kelp…and, further out, graceful moon jellies and—thrillingly—massive whales in open waters beneath gliding pelicans and other shorebirds. After returning to the beach at day’s end to search for shells and to spot anemones and decorator crabs, the child ends with nighttime dreams of stars in the sky meeting stars in the sea. Appended nature notes on kelp and 21 other types of sealife fill in details about patterns and relationships in this rich ecosystem. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
More thoughtful, sometimes exhilarating encounters with nature. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-79720-347-8
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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