Exquisitely highlights the often-ignored beauty surrounding us, igniting scientific curiosity.
Photos of everyday objects taken from extreme close-up perspectives introduce readers to fascinating discoveries.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher and science photographer Frankel seeks out visual patterns in our physical world. Using a Nikon digital SLR or just her camera phone, sometimes through a microscope, she photographs everyday objects. This volume contains a selection of her photos with narrative descriptions that convey her enthusiasm. The book is organized into five sections: “Light and Shadow,” “Form,” “Traces,” “Transformation,” and “Surfaces.” Each category opens with a teaser photograph—an intriguing image of something that’s tricky to identify. A page turn reveals what the object or scene is—a close-up of silk fabric or bubbles, for example. Each photo is accompanied by two paragraphs of text, one labeled “Moment,” which describes what caught Frankel’s eye, and one called “Phenomenon,” which explains the science behind the image. The author uses and defines terms like tessellate, capillary action, viscosity, and diffraction in an easily understood way. She often references explanations from her friends in STEM fields who contribute context about the phenomena she photographs, modeling professional collaboration and encouraging readers to reach out to others. This visually stimulating book dives deep into beautiful, rarely seen patterns of the natural and human-made worlds and the science behind them.
Exquisitely highlights the often-ignored beauty surrounding us, igniting scientific curiosity. (about the chapter openers) (Nonfiction. 13-17)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781536234893
Page Count: 128
Publisher: MITeen Press/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
Full of razors that cut—and razors to cut off shackles: a must.
A slim volume sharp as knives.
Lacing traditional fairy tales through real-life perils, Heppermann produces short poems with raw pain, scathing commentary and fierce liberation. There’s no linear arc; instead, girls buck and fight and hurt. One poem takes the expression “You Go, Girl!” literally, banishing anyone with “wetness, dryness, tightness, looseness, / redness, yellowing, blackheads, whiteheads, the blues.” In a structure heartbreakingly inverted from “The Three Little Pigs” (and nodding to “Rumpelstiltskin”), one girl’s body goes from “a house of bricks, / point guard on the JV team” to “a house of sticks, / kindling in Converse high-tops,” until finally “she’s building herself out of straw / as light as the needle swimming in her bathroom scale. / The smaller the number, the closer to gold.” She’s her own wolf, destroying herself. Sexual repression, molestation and endless beauty judgments bite and sting, causing eating disorders, self-injury, internalization of rules—and rebellion. A hypothetical miller’s daughter says, “No, I can’t spin that room full of straw into gold. / …. / No, I can’t give you the child; / the child will never exist.” Gretel’s act of eating will literally rescue Hansel; Red Riding Hood reclaims sexual agency, declaring, “If that woodsman shows up now, / I will totally kick his ass.”
Full of razors that cut—and razors to cut off shackles: a must. (author’s note, index of first lines, index of photographs) (Poetry. 13-17)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-228957-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
From the cockamamie (extreme ironing) to daredevilry (rooftopping) to a fine day out (catacomb rambling), a taste of...
A hodgepodge of adventuring activities designed for urban settings gathered under the rubric “hacking,” as in the old sense of “play[ing] a sophisticated practical joke on a community,” though considerably more inclusive here.
Place hacking, for author Rosen, comprises three categories of activities: urban exploration, urban adventure and urban infiltration. By its nature, hacking is an outlaw activity, often involving a measure of risk and some illegal acts. There is an unofficial place-hacker code of conduct and an admirable acceptance of personal responsibility for one’s behavior, plus much preparation for the hairier deeds. Still, there are some seriously dangerous exploits recorded in these pages, from entering buildings that may harbor toxic wastes, unstable flooring or creatures unhappy with your visit—skunks, snakes—to scaling the outsides of skyscrapers. But there are also a host of activities that are unlikely to hospitalize or incarcerate the participant, from exploring the urban underground to parkour, a kind of nimble, freestyle run-and-leap through an urban landscape. Despite the disclaimer, “This book...is not intended to be a how-to guide,” there is a segment on staging an illegal exploration—but Rosen emphasizes the pleasure of discovery and the joy of participating in a sport with style and a goal of mastery.
From the cockamamie (extreme ironing) to daredevilry (rooftopping) to a fine day out (catacomb rambling), a taste of unbridled adventure for everyone. (Nonfiction. 13-16)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4677-2515-6
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Lerner
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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