A book of entomological facts and authoritative illustrations, all delivered with a light, child-friendly touch.
Edwards’ illustrated nonfiction children’s book explores various types of bees and other insects.
“What is a bee? Let’s find out why they are so important to you and me!” This well-crafted, fact-filled book by landscape architect–turned–children’s book author Edwards and veteran wildlife illustrator Woodward provides answers with rhyming text and eye-catching images. The work highlights the importance of bees to the planet and introduces some of the remarkably varied members of the bee family to curious young readers. The book begins with a clear, straightforward description of the insects’ anatomy and life cycle and their specific roles in nature. It continues with playful but informative “first-person” profiles of a sampling of the world’s more than 20,000 bee species, including familiar honeybees, less-well-known cuckoo bees (“I’m a very sneaky bee; / I use other bees to raise my young for me”), dwarf honeybees, green sweat bees, long-horned bees, leafcutter bees, mighty carpenter bees, “head-bonking” carder bees, and others. Some of the pages, colorfully illustrated by Woodward, offer fascinating portraits of “wanna bees”—insects that might be mistaken for bees—including certain wasps, predatory robber flies, hover flies (“Surprise! I’m not a bee / But looking like one is important to me”), and even a furry hummingbird moth. The book’s final pages are devoted to more in-depth information, which adults can easily share with children who are interested in expanding their knowledge about how bees’ ecosystems are threatened and why it’s important to protect them.
A book of entomological facts and authoritative illustrations, all delivered with a light, child-friendly touch.Pub Date: July 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-6480-4241-6
Page Count: 38
Publisher: Dorrance Pub Co
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Erupt into applause for this picture book of the first magma-tude.
A deceptively simple, visually appealing, comprehensive explanation of volcanoes.
Gibbons packs an impressive number of facts into this browsable nonfiction picture book. The text begins with the awe of a volcanic eruption: “The ground begins to rumble…ash, hot lava and rock, and gases shoot up into the air.” Diagrams of the Earth’s structural layers—inner and outer core, mantle, and crust—undergird a discussion about why volcanoes occur. Simple maps of the Earth’s seven major tectonic plates show where volcanoes are likeliest to develop. Other spreads with bright, clearly labeled illustrations cover intriguing subtopics: four types of volcanoes and how they erupt; underwater volcanoes; well-known volcanoes and historic volcanic eruptions around the world; how to be safe in the vicinity of a volcano; and the work of scientists studying volcanoes and helping to predict eruptions. A page of eight facts about volcanoes wraps things up. The straightforward, concise prose will be easy for young readers to follow. As always, Gibbons manages to present a great deal of information in a compact form.
Erupt into applause for this picture book of the first magma-tude. (Nonfiction picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4569-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
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
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