A quick but intense tour of a world beneath the waves.
The ocean’s wonders enthrall a curious explorer in this immersive French import.
In distinctively vivid white-on-dark-blue illustrations, Topolanski depicts seabeds teeming with marine life, from tiny eels poking out of a sandy patch to swirling drifts of jellyfish and squid amid coral gardens and thick forests of kelp. All this abundance surrounds Kai, a fascinated diver with paper-white skin who provides a sense of scale and whose heavy-duty orange suit supplies the only notes of color other than her diminutive yellow submersible Nessy, which disappears after a few pages, once Kai ventures out to explore. In the brief narrative, basic facts and Kai’s strong responses to each moment’s encounters lyrically intertwine: “Kai is mesmerized. Jellyfish don’t have hearts or heads, yet they have existed for almost five hundred million years. These strange-shaped, transparent creatures look like visitors from another planet. They dance on the currents.” Kai’s “walk beneath the waves” soon comes to an abrupt end, but the author gives young readers thirsty for knowledge a final gift with a visual key identifying all the previously seen flora and fauna; aspiring explorers will be enchanted.
A quick but intense tour of a world beneath the waves. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9798985849479
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Blue Dot Kids Press
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent.
Wouldn’t the same housecat look very different to a dog and a mouse, a bee and a flea, a fox, a goldfish, or a skunk?
The differences are certainly vast in Wenzel’s often melodramatic scenes. Benign and strokable beneath the hand of a light-skinned child (visible only from the waist down), the brindled cat is transformed to an ugly, skinny slinker in a suspicious dog’s view. In a fox’s eyes it looks like delectably chubby prey but looms, a terrifying monster, over a cowering mouse. It seems a field of colored dots to a bee; jagged vibrations to an earthworm; a hairy thicket to a flea. “Yes,” runs the terse commentary’s refrain, “they all saw the cat.” Words in italics and in capital letters in nearly every line give said commentary a deliberate cadence and pacing: “The cat walked through the world, / with its whiskers, ears, and paws… // and the fish saw A CAT.” Along with inviting more reflective viewers to ruminate about perception and subjectivity, the cat’s perambulations offer elemental visual delights in the art’s extreme and sudden shifts in color, texture, and mood from one page or page turn to the next.
A solo debut for Wenzel showcasing both technical chops and a philosophical bent. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5013-0
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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