Stunning color photographs from a renowned team graphically illustrate the pages, but do not overwhelm the text. The effect...
Donna Jackson (The Bone Detectives, 1996) creates a riveting and thorough account of dedicated people banding together with the help of science and the law to catch an elk poacher. It begins the day before the elk, Charger, is shot in Yellowstone Park and takes the reader through almost two years of detective work more riveting then any television police drama. Jackson focuses on the almost miraculous feats of scientists in the only animal forensic lab in the world as they piece together clues, examining, for example, DNA samples and bullet casings. Those readers clamoring for justice will find satisfaction in the apprehension of the poacher who is punished with jail time and fines. Jackson does not skip lightly around the subject, so the story is often painful and jarring. The treatment is appropriate for children over ten, effectively eliciting an emotional reaction that is educational as well as motivational. Interspersed throughout the story are pages filled with facts about the law, science, poaching, and endangered species.
Stunning color photographs from a renowned team graphically illustrate the pages, but do not overwhelm the text. The effect is that of a scrapbook of information with photos that enrich a real-life animal detective story. (ways to help, list of forensic terms) (Nonfiction. 8-10)Pub Date: April 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-395-86976-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
McDonald’s irrepressible third-grader (Judy Moody Gets Famous, 2001, etc.) takes a few false steps before hitting full stride. This time, not only has her genius little brother Stink submitted a competing entry in the Crazy Strips Band-Aid design contest, but in the wake of her science teacher’s heads-up about rainforest destruction and endangered animals, she sees every member of her family using rainforest products. It’s all more than enough to put her in a Mood, which gets her in trouble at home for letting Stink’s pet toad, Toady, go free, and at school for surreptitiously collecting all the pencils (made from rainforest cedar) in class. And to top it off, Stink’s Crazy Strips entry wins a prize, while she gets . . . a certificate. Chronicled amusingly in Reynolds’s frequent ink-and-tea drawings, Judy goes from pillar to post—but she justifies the pencil caper convincingly enough to spark a bottle drive that nets her and her classmates not only a hundred seedling trees for Costa Rica, but the coveted school Giraffe Award (given to those who stick their necks out), along with T-shirts and ice cream coupons. Judy’s growing corps of fans will crow “Rare!” right along with her. (Fiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7636-1446-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2002
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