Fuzzy on biological specifics but sings a buoyant message about how they make us the same for all our differences.
A rhymed celebration of human individuality within our genetic commonality.
In simple language, media personality Davis and Tyler (The Skin You Live In, 2005) highlight twin notions, one biophysical, the other more conceptual: We all share “billions and billions of tiny gene-dots,” but there is just one dot each that makes us who we are—“Your me-my-mine dot is the who that is ‘You.’ It’s what gives us a hint and a colorful clue / About why you look the way that you do, and why your dot has your only-you hue.” Because that unique dot, the authors go on to claim, governs not only skin color, but facial features, eye color, food preferences, and behavioral tendencies, it actually represents not a single gene but entire chromosomal constellations and even perhaps some epigenetic influences. Still, if this leaves some confusion in its wake that will need later instruction to clear up, the point that for all our “different faces and bodies and names” we are “still 99.9% the same” is a good one to make early and often. Fleming sweetens the presentation even more with a thoroughly diverse cast of, mostly, romping, dancing, and playing children (some of whom use wheelchairs) with outsized heads and big, widely set eyes. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Fuzzy on biological specifics but sings a buoyant message about how they make us the same for all our differences. (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780310748809
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Zonderkidz
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sweet and endearing feathered migration.
A relationship between a Latina grandmother and her mixed-race granddaughter serves as the frame to depict the ruby-throated hummingbird migration pattern.
In Granny’s lap, a girl is encouraged to “keep still” as the intergenerational pair awaits the ruby-throated hummingbirds with bowls of water in their hands. But like the granddaughter, the tz’unun—“the word for hummingbird in several [Latin American] languages”—must soon fly north. Over the next several double-page spreads, readers follow the ruby-throated hummingbird’s migration pattern from Central America and Mexico through the United States all the way to Canada. Davies metaphorically reunites the granddaughter and grandmother when “a visitor from Granny’s garden” crosses paths with the girl in New York City. Ray provides delicately hashed lines in the illustrations that bring the hummingbirds’ erratic flight pattern to life as they travel north. The watercolor palette is injected with vibrancy by the addition of gold ink, mirroring the hummingbirds’ flashing feathers in the slants of light. The story is supplemented by notes on different pages with facts about the birds such as their nest size, diet, and flight schedule. In addition, a note about ruby-throated hummingbirds supplies readers with detailed information on how ornithologists study and keep track of these birds.
A sweet and endearing feathered migration. (bibliography, index) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0538-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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