A fizzy mix of space fun and science.
An alphabet of activities inside and outside the International Space Station.
In big, bright photographs, a cast of astronauts—39 all told, identified at the end, nearly half women, and diverse of race and national origin— “awake,” “brush” their teeth, and then go about their business until it’s time to be “zipped in for the night.” That business has a distinctly playful cast, as glimpses of astronauts exercising, using scientific instruments, or floating out in space are interspersed with views of one juggling 16 pieces of fruit, another giving a soccer ball a kick that sends him head over heels, two playing guitars, three sitting around a table with floating pizzas, and other signs that it’s not all noses to the grindstone all the time. Big letters that look a bit like refrigerator magnets accompany each photo, set against contrasting backgrounds. Despite this, the alphabetic bit is really just a pretext, as closing notes explaining the tasks and instruments on display, an illustrated appendix about astronaut training, and a final list of home or classroom enrichment activities confirm. Everyone in sight is plainly having a grand time, though, so the pedagogical ballast puts no heavy load on a high-spirited picture of daily life in low-Earth orbit. (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 68% of actual size.)
A fizzy mix of space fun and science. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-943978-50-2
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Persnickety Press
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Lighthearted and informative, though the premise may be a bit stretched.
An amiable introduction to our thrifty, sociable, teeming insect cousins.
Bunting notes that all the ants on Earth weigh roughly the same as all the people and observes that ants (like, supposedly, us) love recycling, helping others, and taking “micronaps.” They, too, live in groups, and their “superpower” is an ability to work together to accomplish amazing things. Bunting goes on to describe different sorts of ants within the colony (“Drone. Male. Does no housework. Takes to the sky. Reproduces. Drops dead”), how they communicate using pheromones, and how they get from egg to adult. He concludes that we could learn a lot from them that would help us leave our planet in better shape than it was when we arrived. If he takes a pass on mentioning a few less positive shared traits (such as our tendency to wage war on one another), still, his comparisons do invite young readers to observe the natural world more closely and to reflect on our connections to it. In the simple illustrations, generic black ants look up at viewers with little googly eyes while scurrying about the pages gathering food, keeping nests clean, and carrying outsized burdens.
Lighthearted and informative, though the premise may be a bit stretched. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780593567784
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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