Appetizing fare for the information-hungry.
In this companion to Snooze-O-Rama (2021), Birmingham and Reed return with a lively comparison of human vs. animal eating habits.
The book begins with a light-skinned child opening a lunchbox as a group of animals peer curiously at the food on display. Birmingham invites readers to “join these hungry beasts and see the wild ways they gobble up grub.” Following the format of the previous book, each spread depicts a youngster in action—in this case, chowing down. A page turn reveals an animal who does something different—or similar. “While you slurp some soup,” the author tells us, “a butterfly gulps turtle tears.” And “while you sometimes use a knife to cut up your dinner,” a sea otter relies on a stone to crack open clams or sea urchins. These animals feed, share, and store their respective foods in intriguing and often surprising ways. The information is clearly presented, and Birmingham draws clever parallels between wildlife and people. Stylized depictions of the animals are presented on brightly colored full-bleed pages, which contrast effectively with the vignettes portraying cartoon kids and adults, set against plain white backgrounds. Birmingham closes with a final spread noting that all beings need to eat and explaining the differences among carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. Human characters are diverse; one uses a wheelchair.
Appetizing fare for the information-hungry. (suggested reading) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: April 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781771475501
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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
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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