A fascinating, sometimes funny read that goes well beyond the scatological.
Readers who have wondered how their bodies turn food into fuel and feces need look no further. All the juicy details are in this book.
Each section of the gastrointestinal system is covered in a different chapter, with a breezy explanatory narrative, diagrams, callout boxes with fun or unusual facts, and, at the end, a summary of the most important takeaways. This allows Gardy to explain in detail what takes place in each section of the GI system and even to throw in unexpected bits of history. For instance, the first (known) endoscopy was performed in the 19th century by a German physician with a tube that had many mirrors and a light; the key to its success was that the subject was a professional sword swallower who’d conquered his gag reflex. Kids will be fascinated by the description of how sword swallowing works (capped with the stern instruction not to try it themselves). Gardy also introduces readers to all sorts of scientific advancements, such as fecal transplants and modern efforts to use waste as a source of renewable energy. Even those readers well acquainted with the subject matter will find something new. Illustrations by Wuthrich add interest, supplementing the information with clear diagrams and often funny images that serve to increase readers’ understanding of the text. The illustration of the Bristol stool chart, which includes a wombat admiring its cube-shaped poo, is a standout.
A fascinating, sometimes funny read that goes well beyond the scatological. (glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 8-14)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77164-501-0
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Greystone Kids
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Preposterous situations and farcical sound-alike sentences will elicit groans and giggles.
Homophones in versatile parallel sentences create absurd scenarios.
The pattern is simple but endlessly funny: Two sentences, each illustrated, sound the same but are differentiated by their use of homophones. On the verso of the opening spread a cartoon restaurant scene shows a diner lifting a plate of spaghetti and meatballs to a waiter who removes a dark hair from the plate of noodles: “The hair came forth.” (Both figures have brown skin.) Opposite, the scene shows a race with a tortoise at the finish line while a hare trails the tortoise, a snake, and a snail: “The hare came fourth.” The humorous line drawings feature an array of humans, animals, and monsters and provide support and context to the sentences, however bizarre they may seem. New vocabulary is constantly introduced, as is the idea that spelling and punctuation can alter meaning. Some pairings get quite sophisticated; others are rather forced. “The barred man looted the establishment. / The bard man luted the establishment” stretches the concept, paralleling barred with bard as adjectives and looted with luted as verbs. The former is an orange-jumpsuited White prisoner in a cell; the other, a brown-skinned musician strumming a lute for a racially diverse group of dancers. Poetic license may allow for luted, though the word lute is glaringly missing from the detailed glossary.
Preposterous situations and farcical sound-alike sentences will elicit groans and giggles. (Informational picture book. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-72820-659-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts.
From a Caldecott and Sibert honoree, an invitation to take a mind-expanding journey from the surface of our planet to the furthest reaches of the observable cosmos.
Though Chin’s assumption that we are even capable of understanding the scope of the universe is quixotic at best, he does effectively lead viewers on a journey that captures a sense of its scale. Following the model of Kees Boeke’s classic Cosmic View: The Universe in Forty Jumps (1957), he starts with four 8-year-old sky watchers of average height (and different racial presentations). They peer into a telescope and then are comically startled by the sudden arrival of an ostrich that is twice as tall…and then a giraffe that is over twice as tall as that…and going onward and upward, with ellipses at each page turn connecting the stages, past our atmosphere and solar system to the cosmic web of galactic superclusters. As he goes, precisely drawn earthly figures and features in the expansive illustrations give way to ever smaller celestial bodies and finally to glimmering swirls of distant lights against gulfs of deep black before ultimately returning to his starting place. A closing recap adds smaller images and additional details. Accompanying the spare narrative, valuable side notes supply specific lengths or distances and define their units of measure, accurately explain astronomical phenomena, and close with the provocative observation that “the observable universe is centered on us, but we are not in the center of the entire universe.”
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts. (afterword, websites, further reading) (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4623-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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