Fine fare for younger dinosaur lovers, particularly those of a hands-on sort.
A set of pop-up prehistoric specimens to assemble and insert in a museum exhibit.
Two young tour guides, “Mary” (after Mary Anning) and “Barnum” (after Barnum Brown), squire readers through a soon-to-open dinosaur hall. There they point out slots where each of the five pop-up models—of Stegosaurus, Liopleurodon, Pteranodon, and Triceratops as well as T. Rex skulls—can be (gluelessly) attached and add side comments to the already-placed explanatory and descriptive labels. Neatly hidden beneath a large front flap along with printed assembly diagrams that make matching the various slots and tabs relatively easy, the large punch-out pieces turn into simplified but reasonably realistic models. Smaller specimens of dino poop, a fossilized egg, and other enhancements also have waiting slots in side cases. The pop-ups aren’t the whole show, either, as the parts of the exhibit already in place in the background illustrations and narrative boxes offer a basic but solid picture of dinosaurian types, features, and habits. Mary presents black, and Barnum presents white.
Fine fare for younger dinosaur lovers, particularly those of a hands-on sort. (Informational novelty. 5-7)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-78868-128-5
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Lonely Planet
Review Posted Online: Nov. 11, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
Enticing and eco-friendly.
Why and how to make a rain garden.
Having watched through their classroom window as a “rooftop-rushing, gutter-gushing” downpour sloppily flooded their streets and playground, several racially diverse young children follow their tan-skinned teacher outside to lay out a shallow drainage ditch beneath their school’s downspout, which leads to a patch of ground, where they plant flowers (“native ones with tough, thick roots,” Schaub specifies) to absorb the “mucky runoff” and, in time, draw butterflies and other wildlife. The author follows up her lilting rhyme with more detailed explanations of a rain garden’s function and construction, including a chart to help determine how deep to make the rain garden and a properly cautionary note about locating a site’s buried utility lines before starting to dig; she concludes with a set of leads to online information sources. Gómez goes more for visual appeal than realism. In her scenes, a group of smiling, round-headed, very small children in rain gear industriously lay large stones along a winding border with little apparent effort; nevertheless, her images of the little ones planting generic flowers that are tall and lush just a page turn later do make the outdoorsy project look like fun.
Enticing and eco-friendly. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781324052357
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ideal lead-in to more specific guides to aquarium setup and fish care.
A first introduction to our planet’s finny residents, particularly the decidedly uncommon goldfish.
Preceded by an entire piscatorial ABC that extends over six pages, two children of color lecture an audience of house pets (and readers) about such typical fishy features as scales and gills—properly noting that some fish, like certain eels, have no scales and some, like hagfish, no bony spines. The two then zero in on goldfish, explaining that they are easier to keep at home than tropical fish, originated long ago in China, can recognize the faces of people who bring them food, and with proper care live 25 years. All of this information is presented in a mix of dialogue balloons and single lines of commentary in block letters, accompanying cleanly drawn cartoon illustrations that alternate between a domestic setting and labeled portraits of various fish rendered in fine, exact detail. With easily digestible doses of biological and historical background, common-sense cautionary notes, and a buoyant tone, this is an appealing dive for newly independent readers out to enhance the household menagerie.
An ideal lead-in to more specific guides to aquarium setup and fish care. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943145-15-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: TOON Books & Graphics
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
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