Upbeat conservationist verse.
With this poetry collection, Silverman and Hsu offer encouragement for those worried about the planet.
Vivid verse brings to life a variety of global efforts toward environmental stewardship and revitalization. Each piece offers a close observation of a regionally specific ecological problem and solution; a brief paragraph of text offers more information. “For the Bees” explores how the people of Oslo, Norway, created a “highway” made up of roof gardens and bee boxes to help honeybees, which face threats due to habitat loss and climate change. Another poem details how an initiative in Chicago resulted in people turning their lights off at night to help migrating birds. The result is a distilled portrayal of a world in crisis as well as an optimistic portrait of how a small handful of people, working together, can respond and avert crises. Though it’s clear that our planet faces grave danger, readers will come away feeling that positive change is within their grasp. In lesser hands, this work could have become heavy-handed, but it does what poetry does best: It captures small, meaningful moments with heart. This purposeful collection offers an entry point for deeper conversations about the human role in preservation and protection of the natural world. Hsu’s realistic yet whimsical full-color illustrations add a human touch and reflect diversity in skin tones throughout.
Upbeat conservationist verse. (how you can help, more to explore, resources for families and educators, children’s books celebrating city wildlife) (Picture book/poetry. 4-8)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780358434566
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Clarion/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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
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