When paired with adult guidance, a “valuable” look at place value.
Adler tackles yet another difficult math concept using simple language and an excellent comparison.
Just as “A is both a word and a letter,” “1 is both a number and a digit.” Both letters and digits have to be carefully placed in order to express what the writer wants: “cafe” and “face” use the same letters but are most certainly not the same word, and 216 and 621 are different numbers that use the same digits. Using place-value charts throughout (repeated on the front and back endpapers) that highlight in red the individual digits Adler is focusing on, the digital illustrations depict a bunch of smiling monkeys as they follow a recipe to bake a Colossal Banana Cupcake—colossal so as to use the big numbers Adler is describing. On two facing pages, Miller shows towers of eggs—216 white ones and 621 brown ones—divided into hundreds, tens, and ones. Though the hundreds stack of white eggs is 20 tall and the brown one, 25 tall, still readers get the idea that 600 is much greater than 200. When introducing numbers containing decimals, Adler turns to money and gives a good explanation of our number system’s history. Throughout, Adler teaches not only the place value, but also how the numbers should be read—there is no “and” in 6,324, but there is one in 632.4.
When paired with adult guidance, a “valuable” look at place value. (Math picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3550-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the...
An all-zombie-all-the-time zombiefest, featuring a bunch of grade-school kids, including protagonist Stink and his happy comrades.
This story covers the few days preceding the much-anticipated Midnight Zombie Walk, when Stink and company will take to the streets in the time-honored stiff-armed, stiff-legged fashion. McDonald signals her intent on page one: “Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.” The farce is as broad as the Atlantic, with enough spookiness just below the surface to provide the all-important shivers. Accompanied by Reynolds’ drawings—dozens of scene-setting gems with good, creepy living dead—McDonald shapes chapters around zombie motifs: making zombie costumes, eating zombie fare at school, reading zombie books each other to reach the one-million-minutes-of-reading challenge. When the zombie walk happens, it delivers solid zombie awfulness. McDonald’s feel-good tone is deeply encouraging for readers to get up and do this for themselves because it looks like so much darned fun, while the sub-message—that reading grows “strong hearts and minds,” as well as teeth and bones—is enough of a vital interest to the story line to be taken at face value.Pub Date: March 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5692-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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