Grand and engrossing.
Infused with wonder, an account of a natural cycle that occurs, mostly, far below the ocean’s surface.
Moving “with grace and power, like a dancer,” a blue whale “whirls above and below the currents of the Pacific Ocean” until she dies a natural death. (Brunelle explains that the wax buildup in the whale’s ear reveals that she died at age 90.) Floating for a time and then sinking slowly to the bottom, her decomposing body will for a century or more feed and house millions of scavengers and those that prey on them, from sharks and seabirds to teeming species of worms, crabs, clams, and other deep-sea dwellers. Not only do entire ecosystems develop in overlapping phases on her flesh and then bones, but released nitrates and other nutrients flow back up toward the surface on spring currents to feed the krill that in turn nourish new generations of blue whales. Brunelle’s prose is both lucid and poetic, while Caldecott-winning illustrator Chin depicts all of these changes in precise but lyrical ways, beginning with views of the living whale arcing majestically through sunlit waters; the artist goes on to show the body resting on the dark, mysterious seafloor as its bones are exposed and scattered by busy hordes of feeders both large and microscopic. The author fills in more details about blue whales and recaps the whole sequence of decomposition at the end, before closing with leads to both print and web resources on whales and whale falls.
Grand and engrossing. (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9780823452286
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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
Another playful imagination-stretcher.
Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.
As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.
Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781339049052
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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