A celebration of an early environmental success.
Nuisance beavers find a new home.
In 1948, in fast-growing McCall, Idaho, beavers were looked at as pests. Game warden Elmo Heter tried to remove them, but it was hard to keep semi-aquatic animals happy on a long horseback journey. He came up with an innovative solution: flying them into the mountains and dropping them by parachute into Idaho’s backcountry. (In the aftermath of World War II, surplus parachutes were readily available.) Elmo designed a box that would open when it landed and experimented with a test beaver he named Geronimo. (Readers probably won’t know that this was what World War II airmen shouted as they parachuted out of planes.) Once he was certain the boxes would work, he captured 75 more beavers and had them all flown and dropped into a mountain wilderness where beavers had been wiped out years earlier. A later survey revealed that the beavers had done just what Elmo had intended: They dammed streams and made a wetland. Tracy’s storytelling is succinct, straightforward, and appropriate for her young audience. She emphasizes the advantages of Elmo’s excellent idea, both for the beavers and for the wilderness; backmatter addresses later controversies about wildlife relocation and newer methods. Uribe’s muted digital artwork portrays the details of Elmo's planning, the beauty of the landscape, and some very appealing beavers. These spreads would show well at storytime.
A celebration of an early environmental success. (author’s note, selected sources) (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: July 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593647523
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House Studio
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again.
Cece loves asking “why” and “what if.”
Her parents encourage her, as does her science teacher, Ms. Curie (a wink to adult readers). When Cece and her best friend, Isaac, pair up for a science project, they choose zoology, brainstorming questions they might research. They decide to investigate whether dogs eat vegetables, using Cece’s schnauzer, Einstein, and the next day they head to Cece’s lab (inside her treehouse). Wearing white lab coats, the two observe their subject and then offer him different kinds of vegetables, alone and with toppings. Cece is discouraged when Einstein won’t eat them. She complains to her parents, “Maybe I’m not a real scientist after all….Our project was boring.” Just then, Einstein sniffs Cece’s dessert, leading her to try a new way to get Einstein to eat vegetables. Cece learns that “real scientists have fun finding answers too.” Harrison’s clean, bright illustrations add expression and personality to the story. Science report inserts are reminiscent of The Magic Schoolbus books, with less detail. Biracial Cece is a brown, freckled girl with curly hair; her father is white, and her mother has brown skin and long, black hair; Isaac and Ms. Curie both have pale skin and dark hair. While the book doesn’t pack a particularly strong emotional or educational punch, this endearing protagonist earns a place on the children’s STEM shelf.
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again. (glossary) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-249960-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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