A great interactive introduction to trees that will help children appreciate their many qualities and value.
Encouragement to adopt a tree, learn about trees in general, and appreciate and care for the trees in our world.
Wilsher cleverly folds in lots of learning and vocabulary while introducing children to all things arboreal. After beginning the activity book with the direction to choose a tree, the author moves from there to different things kids can do with their chosen friend: observe it, learn its parts, draw it, hug it (inviting others to join in if one person can’t reach all the way around the trunk), make bark rubbings, determine its age and height, examine its leaves, identify it, climb it, create art (scavenging from the ground, not picking live twigs or leaves), make a treehouse, play games with it, thank it, care for it, and look for seeds, fruit, and animals. The activities call on children to use different senses and skills to engage with the tree they’ve selected, and some of the options involving their tree’s fruit or seeds may require the kids’ power of observation over the course of multiple seasons. Stanev’s charming illustrations use spot, full-page, and double-page illustrations to depict steps, cycles, seasons, and many different types of trees. People depicted (mostly children) are widely diverse and include a wheelchair user and hijabis. Adult supervision and help are encouraged where appropriate.
A great interactive introduction to trees that will help children appreciate their many qualities and value. (Nonfiction activity book. 4-10)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780711280540
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Ivy Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Erupt into applause for this picture book of the first magma-tude.
A deceptively simple, visually appealing, comprehensive explanation of volcanoes.
Gibbons packs an impressive number of facts into this browsable nonfiction picture book. The text begins with the awe of a volcanic eruption: “The ground begins to rumble…ash, hot lava and rock, and gases shoot up into the air.” Diagrams of the Earth’s structural layers—inner and outer core, mantle, and crust—undergird a discussion about why volcanoes occur. Simple maps of the Earth’s seven major tectonic plates show where volcanoes are likeliest to develop. Other spreads with bright, clearly labeled illustrations cover intriguing subtopics: four types of volcanoes and how they erupt; underwater volcanoes; well-known volcanoes and historic volcanic eruptions around the world; how to be safe in the vicinity of a volcano; and the work of scientists studying volcanoes and helping to predict eruptions. A page of eight facts about volcanoes wraps things up. The straightforward, concise prose will be easy for young readers to follow. As always, Gibbons manages to present a great deal of information in a compact form.
Erupt into applause for this picture book of the first magma-tude. (Nonfiction picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4569-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
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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