A fine addition to “sense of wonder” collections.
A ruby-throated hummingbird flies 1,500 miles, from the northeastern United States across the Gulf of Mexico.
Naming his exemplar protagonist Tiny Bird, Burleigh chronicles its pre-migration feeding, its travels southward to the Florida shore, its perilous journey across the Caribbean (a convenient fishing boat provides a resting spot), and its arrival in its tropical winter home. The simple narrative is set in short, poetic lines. There’s suspense: “Over the first pounding waves, / it begins its nonstop flight of more than twenty hours. / Can Tiny Bird make it? Many hummingbirds never do.” The traveler just misses being eaten, first by a hawk and then by a large fish, and weathers a storm. And there’s expressive language, with alliteration, occasional rhyme, and plentiful imagery. After the successful trip, “Tiny Bird rests and feeds, / flickering from flower to flower / like an emerald spark flashing in the bright sun.” While the writer ascribes no gender to his character, Minor’s colorful paintings show a male. In images that feature huge flowers or the vastness of the ocean, the bird is appropriately small, but he’s magnified, reflecting his enormous courage, as he flies through the storm. Information about hummingbird size, flight, and feeding habits is sprinkled throughout the narrative and further developed in a final page of “fun facts”; there’s a map and additional facts on the endpapers.
A fine addition to “sense of wonder” collections. (tips to help hummingbirds, resources) (Informational picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62779-369-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
A solid addition to Rotner’s seasonal series. Bring on summer.
Rotner follows up her celebrations of spring and autumn with this look at all things winter.
Beginning with the signs that winter is coming—bare trees, shorter days, colder temperatures—Rotner eases readers into the season. People light fires and sing songs on the solstice, trees and plants stop growing, and shadows grow long. Ice starts to form on bodies of water and windows. When the snow flies, the fun begins—bundle up and then build forts, make snowballs and snowmen (with eyebrows!), sled, ski (nordic is pictured), skate, snowshoe, snowboard, drink hot chocolate. Animals adapt to the cold as well. “Birds grow more feathers” (there’s nothing about fluffing and air insulation) and mammals, more hair. They have to search for food, and Rotner discusses how many make or find shelter, slow down, hibernate, or go underground or underwater to stay warm. One page talks about celebrating holidays with lights and decorations. The photos show a lit menorah, an outdoor deciduous tree covered in huge Christmas bulbs, a girl next to a Chinese dragon head, a boy with lit luminarias, and some fireworks. The final spread shows signs of the season’s shift to spring. Rotner’s photos, as always, are a big draw. The children are a marvelous mix of cultures and races, and all show their clear delight with winter.
A solid addition to Rotner’s seasonal series. Bring on summer. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3976-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
Enticing and eco-friendly.
Why and how to make a rain garden.
Having watched through their classroom window as a “rooftop-rushing, gutter-gushing” downpour sloppily flooded their streets and playground, several racially diverse young children follow their tan-skinned teacher outside to lay out a shallow drainage ditch beneath their school’s downspout, which leads to a patch of ground, where they plant flowers (“native ones with tough, thick roots,” Schaub specifies) to absorb the “mucky runoff” and, in time, draw butterflies and other wildlife. The author follows up her lilting rhyme with more detailed explanations of a rain garden’s function and construction, including a chart to help determine how deep to make the rain garden and a properly cautionary note about locating a site’s buried utility lines before starting to dig; she concludes with a set of leads to online information sources. Gómez goes more for visual appeal than realism. In her scenes, a group of smiling, round-headed, very small children in rain gear industriously lay large stones along a winding border with little apparent effort; nevertheless, her images of the little ones planting generic flowers that are tall and lush just a page turn later do make the outdoorsy project look like fun.
Enticing and eco-friendly. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781324052357
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
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