Budding scientists should pick up a bevy of entertaining tidbits (and a couple of gross-out gags).
A group of silly alien scientists embarks on a solar system adventure in this second installment of a picture book series.
Seven aliens (including memorable Tim, who frequently announces his own name) take their ship into space, learning about how planets orbit the sun and how a nebula formed the solar system 4.6 billion years ago, and identify each world. The science takes a back seat to the silly in both the rhymes (Mercury’s heat “scorches little buns!” for a bit of fanny humor; Jupiter’s red spot is “like a zit”) and illustrations. The images by Tan (Silly Scientists Take a Tiptoe with the Tadpoles, 2018, etc.) and Aguirre (My Three Sisters/Mis Tres Hermanas, 2018, etc.) feature the scientists wandering on planet surfaces, lounging on beach chairs in space, cuddling in fuzzy parkas, and flying kites in Neptune’s high-speed winds. A few Spanish words are briefly introduced through Tia. (The alien only speaks Spanish but also exclaims, “Aye! Yai! Yai!”) The book is filled with kid-appealing details, though some readers may question the idea that there might have been life on Mars long ago. The highly textured illustrations mix photos, cartoons, and watercolors to eye-catching effect, and the image of the dense-with-life planet Earth, depicted with childlike eyes and expression, is a highlight. Craig’s (Silly Scientists Take a Tiptoe with the Tadpoles, 2018, etc.) always excellent rhymes scan well and combine facts and fun—emphasizing the latter category a bit more than some teachers might appreciate.
Budding scientists should pick up a bevy of entertaining tidbits (and a couple of gross-out gags).Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9967212-6-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Owlbop
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Unforgettably quirky, fast-paced fun.
In a race against their enemies, the Porch girls must find a peculiar pearl in order to foil a fiendish plot.
After defeating a monstrous Kyrgalops in The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science (2024), Gertrude, Eugenia, and Dee-Dee Porch find themselves (after a series of madcap events) at Lake Kagloopy’s Purple Pearl Hotel with their mentor, Millicent Quibb. Quibb informs the trio that they must find the titular pearl before the members of their evil mad-scientist rivals, the KRA, do. If they fail, the KRA (whose members include the malevolent mayor, Majestina DeWeen, and her slimy sycophantic lawyer, Ashley Cookie) plans to use the gem to bestow the Gift of Endless Vibrancy on the villainous Talon Sharktūth. Hilarity ensues as the Porches attend the annual Shrimp Ball, encounter Umbrella Turkeys, search for Cloudite (floating cloud rocks), and don invisible but smelly woolen coats. Jokes aside, the girls’ story is intriguing, offering more clues to their mysterious backgrounds and tantalizing tidbits promising later adventures. McKinnon offers bountiful backstory (alongside a running joke to encourage readers to pick up the preceding volume) and enough guffaw-inducing jokes, zany footnotes, and creative jargon to enthrall readers both new and old with her delightful sophomore effort. Mixing humor, found family, and well-wrought worldbuilding, this sequel is a certain crowd pleaser. Final art not seen; in the previous book, the grayscale illustrations showed the girls with varying skin tones.
Unforgettably quirky, fast-paced fun. (appendices) (Adventure. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9780316555296
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard.
A grouchy sapling on a Christmas tree farm finds that there are better things than lights and decorations for its branches.
A Grinch among the other trees on the farm is determined never to become a sappy Christmas tree—and never to leave its spot. Its determination makes it so: It grows gnarled and twisted and needle-less. As time passes, the farm is swallowed by the suburbs. The neighborhood kids dare one another to climb the scary, grumpy-looking tree, and soon, they are using its branches for their imaginative play, the tree serving as a pirate ship, a fort, a spaceship, and a dragon. But in winter, the tree stands alone and feels bereft and lonely for the first time ever, and it can’t look away from the decorated tree inside the house next to its lot. When some parents threaten to cut the “horrible” tree down, the tree thinks, “Not now that my limbs are full of happy children,” showing how far it has come. Happily for the tree, the children won’t give up so easily, and though the tree never wished to become a Christmas tree, it’s perfectly content being a “trick or tree.” Martinez’s digital illustrations play up the humorous dichotomy between the happy, aspiring Christmas trees (and their shoppers) and the grumpy tree, and the diverse humans are satisfyingly expressive.
Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4926-7335-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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