A cozy selection to share with curled-up human nestlings.
A mind-expanding read for those who think that only birds build nests.
“Twigs in branches, / Bumpy swell, / Leafy perch in which to dwell. / Who nests in trees?” The answer may seem obvious, but in fact there’s not a bird to be seen in Kaulitzki’s misty woodlands or the rest of the peaceful natural habitats that follow. Instead, in her simple interrogatory rhymes, Jameson offers two dozen alternative answers to the titular question—from squirrels, gall wasps, and orangutans and other apes that shelter in trees to rock dwellers like snow leopards and octopuses and other creatures that build safe homes in mud, sand, water, snow, and soil. The artist adds extra appeal to the wild animals she depicts, even the termites and the king cobra, by giving most of them human eyes and posing many with cubs, kits, or other young. Plainly aware that her revelations can’t help but arouse curiosity in readers, the author adds digestible tidbits of scientific information about each entry at the end before closing with guidelines for young observers and nature lovers: “Leave rocks, shells, pine cones, and other natural elements as they are. They may be someone’s home.”
A cozy selection to share with curled-up human nestlings. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 10, 2026
ISBN: 9781665975407
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
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
Another feather in McCloskey’s cap.
Budding naturalists who dug We Dig Worms! (2015) will, well, coo over this similarly enlightening accolade.
A curmudgeonly park visitor’s “They’re RATS with wings!” sparks spirited rejoinders from a racially diverse flock of children wearing full-body bird outfits, who swoop down to deliver a mess of pigeon facts. Along with being related to the dodo, “rock doves” fly faster than a car, mate for life, have been crossbred into all sorts of “fancies,” inspired Pablo Picasso to name his daughter “Paloma” in their honor, can be eaten (“Tastes like chicken”), and, like penguins and flamingos, create “pigeon milk” in their crops for their hatchlings. Painted on light blue art paper—“the kind,” writes McCloskey in his afterword, “used by Picasso”—expertly depicted pigeons of diverse breeds common and fancy strut their stuff, with views of the children and other wild creatures, plus occasional helpful labels, interspersed. In the chastened parkgoer’s eyes, as in those of the newly independent readers to whom this is aimed, the often maligned birds are “wonderful.” Cue a fresh set of costumed children on the final page, gearing up to set him straight on squirrels.
Another feather in McCloskey’s cap. (Graphic informational early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-935179-93-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: TOON Books & Graphics
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
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