A fascinating and (mostly) well-formatted exploration.
This picture book asks readers to imagine having the eyes of various different animals.
“What kind of animal would you be if you had eight eyes?” Turn the page to find out: a jumping spider. What if you had six eyes, each at the end of an arm instead of a hand? What if you had rectangular pupils? Brown-skinned children, one wearing hijab, are pictured modeling the imagined eye structures, interacting with animals and insects, and learning from books and charts. The pattern of asking a question and answering it on the next page works to keep readers engaged, guessing, and turning pages. The pictures of children with extra eyes, moving eyes, antennae, and animalistic pupils are intriguingly bizarre to look at and will likely keep curious children coming back to this book for stares and giggles. The text is fairly lengthy for a picture book and offers profound scientific information; though it is easy to understand, the spidery, thin, cursivelike type that conveys it is a little daunting for youngsters. Unanswered questions are included in the text, showing that science is an ongoing investigation. The backmatter includes simple activities, more about pupils, a glossary, and further reading. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18.5-inch double-page spreads viewed at 29.5% of actual size.)
A fascinating and (mostly) well-formatted exploration. (Informational picture book. 4-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5415-3838-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Millbrook/Lerner
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 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
Erupt into applause for this picture book of the first magma-tude.
A deceptively simple, visually appealing, comprehensive explanation of volcanoes.
Gibbons packs an impressive number of facts into this browsable nonfiction picture book. The text begins with the awe of a volcanic eruption: “The ground begins to rumble…ash, hot lava and rock, and gases shoot up into the air.” Diagrams of the Earth’s structural layers—inner and outer core, mantle, and crust—undergird a discussion about why volcanoes occur. Simple maps of the Earth’s seven major tectonic plates show where volcanoes are likeliest to develop. Other spreads with bright, clearly labeled illustrations cover intriguing subtopics: four types of volcanoes and how they erupt; underwater volcanoes; well-known volcanoes and historic volcanic eruptions around the world; how to be safe in the vicinity of a volcano; and the work of scientists studying volcanoes and helping to predict eruptions. A page of eight facts about volcanoes wraps things up. The straightforward, concise prose will be easy for young readers to follow. As always, Gibbons manages to present a great deal of information in a compact form.
Erupt into applause for this picture book of the first magma-tude. (Nonfiction picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4569-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
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