Not useful for reference, though an enticing plaything for younger armchair travelers.
Animations and clever enhancements give this elementary atlas more flash than its print version (2011), but the content remains skimpy and poorly organized.
Built around a really quite cool cartoon globe that can be rotated at will, the app allows viewers to zoom in on any area or country. A tap opens a fact box that contains an animated national flag, basic information such as land area, capital city and (with location settings turned on) “Distance From Me.” There are also a handful of environmental facts such as average CO2 emissions per head and current weather (presumably in said capital). Audio narration and a snatch of localized music are optionally available as well. Alternatively, countries or world regions can also be selected through searchable lists linked to a corner icon or visited alphabetically using arrows at the bottom. In addition, tapping on any of the dozens of small buildings, flora or fauna, objects and human figures that festoon the globe opens a box with a link to a photo and an assortment of facts, albeit not always clearly presented ones. The “Brahman cattle” icon, for instance, indicates that though they are "[o]riginally from India, these cattle are now popular around the world," without explaining exactly why it's wandering across Brazil. There are no political boundaries except for country borders, and those are hard to find even at full zoom.
Not useful for reference, though an enticing plaything for younger armchair travelers. (iPad informational app. 5-8)Pub Date: March 15, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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