A feel-good story of a successful children’s campaign to make the world safer for birds.
The rescue of a disoriented sparrow introduces the problems that city lights pose for migrating birds.
A flock of sparrows sets out, but the glare of streetlights and bright signs prevents them from seeing the stars. They scatter, and one is left behind but is soon rescued by a girl and her father, who take the bird to a rehab center. Over the winter the sparrow heals, while the girl and her schoolmates mount a campaign to encourage people to turn their lights off at night during migration season. When the sparrows return in the spring, the lights have been turned off, the stars are visible, and they all find their way through the city safely—including the left-behind sparrow, who’s since recovered. The simple, smoothly written text sits directly on a backdrop of digital illustrations featuring stylized city scenes and country landscapes, all of which would show nicely to a group. Readers may be slightly confused at the references to window collision; children may need the help of an adult to understand that reflective window glass and light pollution are two separate problems. (This difference is made clear in the backmatter.) Thoughtfully, the illustrator has shown gloved adult hands picking up the birds. The girl and her father are brown-skinned; the classroom is diverse.
A feel-good story of a successful children’s campaign to make the world safer for birds. (information on light pollution, lights-out campaigns, how to help, and flyways; bibliography) (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781665931977
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A solid addition to Rotner’s seasonal series. Bring on summer.
Rotner follows up her celebrations of spring and autumn with this look at all things winter.
Beginning with the signs that winter is coming—bare trees, shorter days, colder temperatures—Rotner eases readers into the season. People light fires and sing songs on the solstice, trees and plants stop growing, and shadows grow long. Ice starts to form on bodies of water and windows. When the snow flies, the fun begins—bundle up and then build forts, make snowballs and snowmen (with eyebrows!), sled, ski (nordic is pictured), skate, snowshoe, snowboard, drink hot chocolate. Animals adapt to the cold as well. “Birds grow more feathers” (there’s nothing about fluffing and air insulation) and mammals, more hair. They have to search for food, and Rotner discusses how many make or find shelter, slow down, hibernate, or go underground or underwater to stay warm. One page talks about celebrating holidays with lights and decorations. The photos show a lit menorah, an outdoor deciduous tree covered in huge Christmas bulbs, a girl next to a Chinese dragon head, a boy with lit luminarias, and some fireworks. The final spread shows signs of the season’s shift to spring. Rotner’s photos, as always, are a big draw. The children are a marvelous mix of cultures and races, and all show their clear delight with winter.
A solid addition to Rotner’s seasonal series. Bring on summer. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3976-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 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
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