TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR, I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE

Name: TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR, I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE
Author: Julia Kregenow
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7006-3

by Julia Kregenow ; illustrated by Carmen Saldaña ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 4, 2018

Nourishing fare for young stargazers who really, truly do “wonder what you are.” (Informational picture book. 6-9)

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From an astrophysicist, the straight dope on stars and starry phenomena.

Kregenow responds to the popular nursery rhyme in the same metrical vein but with analytical precision: “Opaque ball of hot dense gas, / million times our planet’s mass, / looking small because you’re far, / I know exactly what you are.” Further verses clear the air about constellations (“at best / just a cosmic Rorschach test”), why stars twinkle, why they shine in different colors, how they can turn into neutron stars or black holes, and so on. Notes at the end, with small photos, offer further detail on these and other cosmic concepts. Saldaña sandwiches painted images of stars and star fields, planets, and dust clouds between views of two dark-haired beige-skinned children peering through a bedroom telescope at the night sky and using a printed guidebook to identify what they’re seeing, then falling asleep beneath a spray of stars projected by a night light. The technical vocabulary as well as the narrative’s coldly rational tone and blanket claims of certainty lay a heavy load on the original verse—but in the end the references to pulsars and supernovas, to billions of years and miles, and the uniqueness (so far) of our planet as a home for life amid the Milky Way’s “Quarter trillion stars” are less apt to quash the wondering than crank it up.

Nourishing fare for young stargazers who really, truly do “wonder what you are.” (Informational picture book. 6-9)

Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-4926-7006-3

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | CHILDREN'S POETRY

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BUTT OR FACE?

by Kari Lavelle ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2023

A gleeful game for budding naturalists.

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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I AM GRAVITY

by Henry Herz ; illustrated by Mercè López ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 15, 2024

An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe.

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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)