Judicious as well as useful, even without real-world examples.
A quick overview of common advertising tricks and techniques, with sample campaigns for young entrepreneurs and influencers.
Without taking a more than mildly alarmist tone Fyvie takes readers on an “AD-venture” to explore how advertisers consider placement, repetition, color, graphic design, testimonials, and like elements to attract notice, achieve brand loyalty, play on fears or aspirations, and, where appropriate, encourage children to use their “pester power.” Rather than cite actual people, products, or campaigns, she delivers general advice for readers with an interest in creating personal brands, online and otherwise, and also outlines general promotional strategies for a commercial product (“Bubblarious!® Bubble Gum”) and an e-waste recycling service (“Scrap Heap Fleet™”) to show some of the techniques in action. Along with describing how bait-and-switch and other deceptive practices work, she also discusses privacy in an age of data tracking and other issues—including racial and other representation in advertising. The closing resource list includes both handbooks and cautionary screeds. Turner casts actively posed human figures with brown, orange, blue, and green skin, as well as some in wheelchairs, in the cartoon illustrations scattered throughout. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 80% of actual size.)
Judicious as well as useful, even without real-world examples. (glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 8-11)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0131-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Go adventuring with a better guide.
Find something to do in every state in the U.S.A.!
This guide highlights a location of interest within each of the states, therefore excluding Washington, D.C., and the territories. Trivia about each location is scattered across crisply rendered landscapes that background each state’s double-page spread while diminutive, diverse characters populate the scenes. Befitting the title, one “adventure” is presented per state, such as shrimping in Louisiana’s bayous, snowshoeing in Connecticut, or celebrating the Fourth of July in Boston. While some are stereotypical gimmes (surfing in California), others have the virtue of novelty, at least for this audience, such as viewing the sandhill crane migration in Nebraska. Within this thematic unity, some details go astray, and readers may find themselves searching in vain for animals mentioned. The trivia is plentiful but may be misleading, vague, or incorrect. Information about the Native American peoples of the area is often included, but its brevity—especially regarding sacred locations—means readers are floundering without sufficient context. The same is true for many of the facts that relate directly to expansion and colonialism, such as the unexplained near extinction of bison. Describing the genealogical oral history of South Carolina’s Gullah community as “spin[ning] tales” is equally brusque and offensive. The book tries to do a lot, but it is more style than substance, which may leave readers bored, confused, slightly annoyed—or all three. (This book was reviewed digitally with 12.2-by-20.2-inch double-page spreads viewed at 80% of actual size.)
Go adventuring with a better guide. (tips on local adventuring, index) (Nonfiction. 8-10)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7112-5445-9
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
As better pictures are available and the humor is too heavy-handed to add style points, that dismissal can serve for this...
An irreverent introduction to China’s long line of emperors, with sidelong glances at life in the outsized but cloistered imperial palace.
The simply phrased answer to a modern child’s titular question offers a jumble of general observations about forms of address, ceremonial duties, imperial officials and consorts, how members of the imperial family were educated, what they ate, and what emperors were expected to do and be. Readers will likely come away more confused than enlightened. The Forbidden City itself, built about 600 years ago, is neither mapped nor described here in any detail; such terms as “eunuch” and “consort” are defined long after they are first used (if at all); and Chinese expressions are discussed (and in one case translated two different ways) without being actually shown. Thick-lined cartoon figures in traditional dress, many with almost identical features, add a comical flavor. They pose on nearly every page with captions and comments in speech balloons that have, to say the least, an anachronistic ring: an emperor’s whiny “I’m stressed out,” is echoed a few pages later by a trio of “pregnant imperial consorts” racing to produce the first-born child; and the deposed last emperor, Puyi, closes with a casual “See ya!”
As better pictures are available and the humor is too heavy-handed to add style points, that dismissal can serve for this whole sloppy effort. (website) (Nonfiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9893776-6-9
Page Count: 108
Publisher: China Institute in America
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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