Standing out in beauty and breadth, a lyrical addition to the animal-homes shelf.
From an octopus’ “stony villa” to a satin bowerbird’s “blue pavilion,” Simler takes young readers on a poetic, fanciful tour of animal homes.
Architectural drawings of human habitations on the endpapers set the tone for the gentle anthropomorphization of Simler’s descriptions. Spread by spread, the animals describe their dwellings in short poems, translated by Lal from the original French. “I live in the vertical plane,” declares the cross orbweaver spider, “in a complex structure / made from the strongest / and most elastic material there is.” Simler’s trademark style of digitally finished hair’s-breadth strokes of colored pencil creates a “lace citadel” that occupies two-thirds of the spread, tiny breaks in the white lines allowing the web’s strands to glimmer against a black background. The spider’s delicate hairs beg readers to touch them. Simler introduces 27 animal abodes in all, from every continent except Antarctica, most of them rarely depicted in books for young readers. Refreshingly, only two (the golden eagle and the Sumatran orangutan) represent charismatic megafauna. Readers will meet Australia’s cathedral termites, for instance, which build a “clay skyscraper,” and the Kalahari’s sociable weaver, which inhabits a “straw apartment complex,” a tree-enveloping nest that holds 500 birds. Backmatter includes a short prose paragraph about each animal, a glossary, and recommended resources.
Standing out in beauty and breadth, a lyrical addition to the animal-homes shelf. (Informational picture book/poetry. 5-8)Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780802856203
Page Count: 68
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
Another playful imagination-stretcher.
Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.
As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.
Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781339049052
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort.
A look at the unique ways that 11 globe-spanning animal species construct their homes.
Each creature garners two double-page spreads, which Cherrix enlivens with compelling and at-times jaw-dropping facts. The trapdoor spider constructs a hidden burrow door from spider silk. Sticky threads, fanning from the entrance, vibrate “like a silent doorbell” when walked upon by unwitting insect prey. Prairie dogs expertly dig communal burrows with designated chambers for “sleeping, eating, and pooping.” The largest recorded “town” occupied “25,000 miles and housed as many as 400 million prairie dogs!” Female ants are “industrious insects” who can remove more than a ton of dirt from their colony in a year. Cathedral termites use dirt and saliva to construct solar-cooled towers 30 feet high. Sasaki’s lively pictures borrow stylistically from the animal compendiums of mid-20th-century children’s lit; endpapers and display type elegantly suggest the blues of cyanotypes and architectural blueprints. Jarringly, the lead spread cheerfully extols the prowess of the corals of the Great Barrier Reef, “the world’s largest living structure,” while ignoring its accelerating, human-abetted destruction. Calamitously, the honeybee hive is incorrectly depicted as a paper-wasps’ nest, and the text falsely states that chewed beeswax “hardens into glue to shape the hive.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort. (selected sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-5625-9
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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