Amusing as it is to learn that the queen of England’s crown “weighs 75 servings of cotton candy,” the overall concept is...
In a spirit of free association, a Belgian illustrator pulls together assorted animals and objects natural or otherwise to demonstrate the subjective nature of height, weight, distance, speed, and strength.
Done in swathes of vivid, often imaginatively selected colors, the simple graphic-style illustrations are easy on the eye and supply a mildly retro vibe to the discourse. Many of the comparisons are likewise imaginative. A giraffe towers over the figure of a strutting socialite but looks small next to a T. Rex; if the sun were a soccer ball, the Earth would be a cherry on the opposite end of the pitch; a snow leopard (dark red, here, with blue and yellow highlights) can leap over a “lorry truck.” But none of the measurements comes with sources, and all are rounded off, incorrectly—a sandpiper’s “maximum speed” is much more than 5 mph—or just arbitrary estimates. Moreover, in the accompanying commentary, that “lorry truck” somehow becomes a “bus” by the end of the paragraph, and banal statements (“It’s more or less impossible to picture how big space is”) collide with awkward phrasing: “…we might think giraffes are intimidatingly tall, yet dinosaurs would be unimpressed as they are barely their height.” There is no front- or backmatter to lend even a pretext of organization to the largely arbitrarily ordered spreads.
Amusing as it is to learn that the queen of England’s crown “weighs 75 servings of cotton candy,” the overall concept is better served by systematic treatments, such as Lita Judge’s How Big Were Dinosaurs? (2013). (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-3-89955-732-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little Gestalten
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so...
A pro bono Twinkie of a book invites readers to fly off in a magic plane to bring clean water to our planet’s oceans, deserts, and brown children.
Following a confusingly phrased suggestion beneath a soft-focus world map to “touch the Earth. Now touch where you live,” a shake of the volume transforms it into a plane with eyes and feathered wings that flies with the press of a flat, gray “button” painted onto the page. Pressing like buttons along the journey releases a gush of fresh water from the ground—and later, illogically, provides a filtration device that changes water “from yucky to clean”—for thirsty groups of smiling, brown-skinned people. At other stops, a tap on the button will “help irrigate the desert,” and touching floating bottles and other debris in the ocean supposedly makes it all disappear so the fish can return. The 20 children Coh places on a globe toward the end are varied of skin tone, but three of the four young saviors she plants in the flier’s cockpit as audience stand-ins are white. The closing poem isn’t so openly parochial, though it seldom rises above vague feel-good sentiments: “Love the Earth, the moon and sun. / All the children can be one.”
“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so easy to clean the place up and give everyone a drink? (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5107-2083-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent.
Wouldn’t the same housecat look very different to a dog and a mouse, a bee and a flea, a fox, a goldfish, or a skunk?
The differences are certainly vast in Wenzel’s often melodramatic scenes. Benign and strokable beneath the hand of a light-skinned child (visible only from the waist down), the brindled cat is transformed to an ugly, skinny slinker in a suspicious dog’s view. In a fox’s eyes it looks like delectably chubby prey but looms, a terrifying monster, over a cowering mouse. It seems a field of colored dots to a bee; jagged vibrations to an earthworm; a hairy thicket to a flea. “Yes,” runs the terse commentary’s refrain, “they all saw the cat.” Words in italics and in capital letters in nearly every line give said commentary a deliberate cadence and pacing: “The cat walked through the world, / with its whiskers, ears, and paws… // and the fish saw A CAT.” Along with inviting more reflective viewers to ruminate about perception and subjectivity, the cat’s perambulations offer elemental visual delights in the art’s extreme and sudden shifts in color, texture, and mood from one page or page turn to the next.
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5013-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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