Uneven but worthwhile.
Crafts projects made from simple materials echo aspects of iconic structures from Stonehenge and the Sagrada Família to a Zen garden.
Confusingly switching from addressing children in some passages to adult caregivers in others, Seblon opens each entry with a description of the chosen structure alongside a not-always-helpfully angled photo. She adds several discussion questions, then goes on to pair terse instructions with photos or diagrams of the neatly assembled project at successive stages. The “little hands” (as she puts it) that are visible in some pictures will generally need help from adult hands to finish most of these projects—the rounded river pebbles prescribed for Stonehenge, for example, will be hard to balance atop one another, and the cardboard walls for the “Tower block box” inspired by Le Corbusier’s brutalist Cité Radieuse (“Radiant City”) will require more than the suggested safety scissors. Several will also require waiting for paint, glue, or papier-mâché to dry partway through before they can be finished off. Still, even if many of the completed models don’t resemble the buildings that supposedly inspired them, they will require enough effort to satisfy hands-on builders, and more than a few could potentially exhibit spectacular forms and colors. The skin hues of photographed hands and Sae-Heng’s small figures of painted children are diverse.
Uneven but worthwhile. (list of buildings) (Nonfiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780500660249
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
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
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe.
An introduction to gravity.
The book opens with the most iconic demonstration of gravity, an apple falling. Throughout, Herz tackles both huge concepts—how gravity compresses atoms to form stars and how black holes pull all kinds of matter toward them—and more concrete ones: how gravity allows you to jump up and then come back down to the ground. Gravity narrates in spare yet lyrical verse, explaining how it creates planets and compresses atoms and comparing itself to a hug. “My embrace is tight enough that you don’t float like a balloon, but loose enough that you can run and leap and play.” Gravity personifies itself at times: “I am stubborn—the bigger things are, the harder I pull.” Beautiful illustrations depict swirling planets and black holes alongside racially diverse children playing, running, and jumping, all thanks to gravity. Thorough backmatter discusses how Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity and explains Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. While at times Herz’s explanations may be a bit too technical for some readers, burgeoning scientists will be drawn in.
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668936849
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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