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JOAN PROCTER, DRAGON DOCTOR

Name: JOAN PROCTER, DRAGON DOCTOR
Author: Patricia Valdez
ISBN: 978-0-399-55725-5

THE WOMAN WHO LOVED REPTILES

by Patricia Valdez ; illustrated by Felicita Sala ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 13, 2018

This view into Procter’s brief life connects her early passion for reptiles with her innovative career combining scientific...

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Valdez introduces Joan Procter, whose lifelong love of reptiles yielded a career at London’s Natural History Museum and the London Zoo.

Avid for reptiles from childhood, Joan received a crocodile for her 16th birthday. First assisting, then succeeding the museum’s curator of reptiles, Joan surveyed the collections, published papers, and made models for exhibits. Her designs for the zoo’s reptile house incorporated innovative lighting and heating as well as plants and artwork evoking the reptiles’ habitats. Joan’s reputation soared with the arrival of two 7-foot-long Komodo dragons, coinciding with the reptile house’s opening. Presenting a paper at the Zoological Society, Joan brought along one of them, Sumbawa, who ate a pigeon whole and strolled among attendees. Valdez’s narrative alludes to Procter’s poor health obliquely: pet reptiles cheered her “on the days Joan was too sick to attend school,” and a later spread depicts her “riding through the zoo” in a wheelchair. (An appended note explains that a “chronic intestinal illness” led to Joan’s death at just 34.) Sala portrays stylized reptiles and 1920s-era British clothing. People’s skin tones range from stark white to various tans and browns. Indeed, although she was white, Joan’s skin varies throughout, sometimes appearing white and pink and others times various shades of beige.

This view into Procter’s brief life connects her early passion for reptiles with her innovative career combining scientific research, practice, art, and design. (author’s note, bibliography of primary sources, photographs) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)

Pub Date: March 13, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-399-55725-5

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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BUTT OR FACE?

by Kari Lavelle ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2023

A gleeful game for budding naturalists.

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

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by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Bryan Collier

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WHAT IF YOU HAD AN ANIMAL HOME!?

From the What if You Had . . .? series

by Sandra Markle ; illustrated by Howard McWilliam ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 7, 2024

Another playful imagination-stretcher.

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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)