A stirring story of persistence and courage.
Rasila Vadher’s dream of caring for lions began when she visited the Gir Forest as a girl.
Each day after school, young Rasila sold peanuts to help her family make ends meet. On a school trip to the Gir Forest, she learned about the Asiatic lions, which were nearly hunted to extinction. Inspired to protect these magnificent beasts, she seized an opportunity to work as a forest guard, but gendered roles kept her confined to office work. Rasila tamped down her desires but jumped at the chance to head a rescue operation for an injured lioness. Her one face-to-face encounter with a lion left her with a sense of elation. Rasila’s confidence and abilities grew as she took on more responsibilities—catching pythons, patrolling for poachers, caring for abandoned lion cubs at the rescue center, and training other women on the force—which earned her the title Lion Queen. The bright illustrations in vibrant indigos, sunset oranges, and deep greens showcase lush forest landscapes as Singh details how Vadher realized her goal of becoming the first woman forest guard despite the constraints she faced as a woman in a conservative community. Though the narrative is a bit choppy in places, her determination and commitment are deeply moving. Backmatter offers information about Vadher, the other “Lion Queens” hired as rangers in Gujarat in 2007, and Asiatic lions.
A stirring story of persistence and courage. (Picture-book biography. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781951836849
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Cameron Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
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
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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