An inspiring account of a notable early role model who pursued a STEM career despite sexism.
A young girl’s curiosity, spurred by the whaling ships she saw near her Nantucket home, led to careers in astronomy and teaching.
This picture-book biography follows Maria Mitchell, who was born in 1818 to a White Quaker family. Encouraged by her father to research and follow her passion for science, she sought more than a life of needlework, housework, husband, and children; she learned to read the stars in the sky by using a sextant, a metronome, and a chronometer. At a young age, she repaired a chronometer for a surprised sea captain (“What could a girl possibly know of mathematics and machines?”). Her future then became limitless. Maria started her own school, became a librarian, and entered a contest to find a new comet, with a reward provided by the king of Denmark. Despite a broken telescope, which she also repaired, she won the challenge and was eventually offered a position as professor of astronomy in a women’s college in New York. This stirring account is told in an uplifting voice highlighting Mitchell’s youthful inquisitiveness and determination to expand her knowledge. Alary emphasizes that Mitchell owed her education, in part, to her enlightened father, who foresaw the talent, ambition, and drive in his daughter; a gifted teacher herself, Mitchell endowed her students with information about great scientists, mathematics, and faraway places. Textured collage art brings the text to life. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An inspiring account of a notable early role model who pursued a STEM career despite sexism. (author's note, bibliography) (Picture-book biography. 6-10)Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0348-7
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.
This book is buzzing with trivia.
Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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