Remarkable for the number and variety of dinosaurs displayed.
What is your birthday dinosaur? This intriguing presentation describes 366 species of dinosaurs from around the world, one for every day of a leap year.
From Eoraptor to Ruyangosaurus, this abundance of prehistoric reptiles (and a few early birds) is presented with illustrations, fast facts, and a short informational paragraph apiece. The album opens with introductions to dinosaurs and their world and closes with a spread that explains their demise, along with “nearly three-quarters of all animal and plant species on Earth at the time.” The day-by-day presentation doesn’t appear to follow any organizational underpinning, although occasional clusters feature groups of six dinosaurs who have something in common—for example, February highlights “speedy dinosaurs” and “insect eaters,” while July has categories labeled “meat-eating dinosaurs” and “sea reptiles.” The attractive illustrations, from vignettes to double-page spreads, are bright and engaging and provide some sense of each animal’s habitat. There are no sources for the information nor any explanation for the colors the artists have assigned them. The likely audience for this collection consists of very young dinosaur enthusiasts, who will revel in the variety of creatures that have been discovered. Titles such as Yang Yang’s The Secrets of Dinosaurs (2021) present these reptiles chronologically and give readers a better idea of who their neighbors were.
Remarkable for the number and variety of dinosaurs displayed. (pronunciation guide, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 5-9)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780593903339
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Bright Matter Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again.
Cece loves asking “why” and “what if.”
Her parents encourage her, as does her science teacher, Ms. Curie (a wink to adult readers). When Cece and her best friend, Isaac, pair up for a science project, they choose zoology, brainstorming questions they might research. They decide to investigate whether dogs eat vegetables, using Cece’s schnauzer, Einstein, and the next day they head to Cece’s lab (inside her treehouse). Wearing white lab coats, the two observe their subject and then offer him different kinds of vegetables, alone and with toppings. Cece is discouraged when Einstein won’t eat them. She complains to her parents, “Maybe I’m not a real scientist after all….Our project was boring.” Just then, Einstein sniffs Cece’s dessert, leading her to try a new way to get Einstein to eat vegetables. Cece learns that “real scientists have fun finding answers too.” Harrison’s clean, bright illustrations add expression and personality to the story. Science report inserts are reminiscent of The Magic Schoolbus books, with less detail. Biracial Cece is a brown, freckled girl with curly hair; her father is white, and her mother has brown skin and long, black hair; Isaac and Ms. Curie both have pale skin and dark hair. While the book doesn’t pack a particularly strong emotional or educational punch, this endearing protagonist earns a place on the children’s STEM shelf.
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again. (glossary) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-249960-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
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
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