An inspiring picture book about eco-feminism in action in the global south.
Haunted by the untimely deaths of his mother and daughter, an Indian man named Sundar grows up to become an activist dedicated to advancing gender equity and environmental justice in his home state of Rajasthan.
After he gets married, Sundar works in a marble quarry owned by men who unapologetically wreak ecological havoc on the land. Disgusted by these practices, Sundar quits his job and runs for the position of head of his village, a title known as the sarpanch, and wins. His joy is short-lived: A year after his victory, his oldest daughter dies. As he mourns, he notices how little female children are valued in his village. He then hatches a plan to honor his daughter’s memory, change attitudes about gender, and combat the deforestation that has been devastating the local land. Every time a girl is born in the village, Sundar decides that the people will plant 111 trees in her honor. Sundar’s idea fundamentally affects his hometown in deeply positive ways. Including endnotes about Rajasthan, gender equity, and eco-feminism, this earnest, inspiring book forthrightly discusses everything from environmental exploitation to female feticide in language suitable for young readers. Although many readers will give a side-eye when Sundar tells the villagers that in developed countries “girls and boys are treated equally,” overall, this is an uplifting story about the power of personal action. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.4-by-19-inch double-page spreads viewed at 41.1% of actual size.)
An inspiring picture book about eco-feminism in action in the global south. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0120-9
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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
An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort.
A look at the unique ways that 11 globe-spanning animal species construct their homes.
Each creature garners two double-page spreads, which Cherrix enlivens with compelling and at-times jaw-dropping facts. The trapdoor spider constructs a hidden burrow door from spider silk. Sticky threads, fanning from the entrance, vibrate “like a silent doorbell” when walked upon by unwitting insect prey. Prairie dogs expertly dig communal burrows with designated chambers for “sleeping, eating, and pooping.” The largest recorded “town” occupied “25,000 miles and housed as many as 400 million prairie dogs!” Female ants are “industrious insects” who can remove more than a ton of dirt from their colony in a year. Cathedral termites use dirt and saliva to construct solar-cooled towers 30 feet high. Sasaki’s lively pictures borrow stylistically from the animal compendiums of mid-20th-century children’s lit; endpapers and display type elegantly suggest the blues of cyanotypes and architectural blueprints. Jarringly, the lead spread cheerfully extols the prowess of the corals of the Great Barrier Reef, “the world’s largest living structure,” while ignoring its accelerating, human-abetted destruction. Calamitously, the honeybee hive is incorrectly depicted as a paper-wasps’ nest, and the text falsely states that chewed beeswax “hardens into glue to shape the hive.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort. (selected sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-5625-9
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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