The heart of an ecosystem has never been better presented for young readers. (Informational picture book. 4-8)
A jungle ecosystem is described in words and pictures in this picture book.
The story begins, “Once upon a time, there lived a jungle”—the word “lived” setting the tone for the book’s theme of the jungle as a living thing, and this marvelous textual precision continues. The text is succinct, with only a few words per page, and the illustrations are clean and stylized with bright colors against a black background, but their sum total is a marvel of economy, clarity, and breadth. The beginning pages tell of the ants, who are preyed on by the mantis, who in turn is hunted by the lizard, and as the story continues, the illustrations pull farther back in scope, with repeating features, such as a butterfly, to anchor them. Attentive readers will find layers of creatures and plants within the illustrations, amplifying the idea of the layered life of the jungle. As the story concludes, the text loops back to its beginning, giving readers an understanding of the circularity of the food chain. The book ends with two gatefolds, both skillful summations. One is an expansive three-page illustration of creatures that live in the jungle, and the other presents a clear, logical explanation of a food chain.
The heart of an ecosystem has never been better presented for young readers. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-77085-971-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
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