This is another splendid invitation to children to explore the natural world.
Larger-than–life-size paintings, intricate drawings and a chatty, informative text combine to introduce the world of insects and spiders, “the largest biomass on Earth.”
Displaying his own boundless sense of wonder, Arnosky draws on personal experiences to attract his audience, describing a mayfly hatch in a trout-filled pond, a lady beetle that crashed near his woodstove, a yellow-striped grasshopper seen in the Everglades and more. The naturalist covers an astonishing variety—mayflies and dragonflies, beetles and bugs, caterpillars, moths and butterflies, grasshoppers and their relatives, bees, wasps, ants, flies and spiders. The information he provides is necessarily limited, but he’s chosen facts likely to appeal. Short chapters are organized into familiar groups and separated by six fold-out pages (two are gate-folds) full of examples. Gorgeous, carefully crafted paintings show tiny details and often include a creature’s habitat. The magnification is usually given, and silhouettes show actual size. Labeled pencil drawings add further detail and make comparisons. Although the author differentiates between a cocoon and a chrysalis, he does not clarify that calling the latter a cocoon as well is erroneous. He includes solid suggestions for further reading. A table of contents makes the organization clear, but an index would have been helpful.
This is another splendid invitation to children to explore the natural world. (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: April 3, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4027-7766-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
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
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.
This book is buzzing with trivia.
Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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