Silly fun with a serious purpose.
An industrial designer brainstorms strategies for sustainably transforming our cities and our world.
Mushin argues that pondering “ridiculous ideas can actually be INCREDIBLY SENSIBLE,” noting that doing so encourages thinking outside the box. Accordingly, he takes a current theory that prehistoric megafauna actually had a direct, major influence on their habitats and runs with it. Among other examples, he proposes an urban “Megafauna Emulator” that creates and poops out “compost cannonballs” (with aerodynamic toffee coatings), rooftop gardens guarded by chickens that recycle food scraps to create nutrient-rich poo collected by robotic dung beetles, and flying bicycles lifted by “biogas booster pants.” “Everything in this book,” Mushin writes, “is THEORETICALLY POSSIBLE” and if implemented would not only save vanishing species, but would “CRUSH CLIMATE CHANGE like a Matchbox car in a vise.” Readers may find some of his proposals hard to absorb, since he insists on cramming every oversize page with Rube Goldberg–style diagrams or cutaway views of zany factories and devices, and the work is rife with dense bursts of hand-lettered narrative. Still, the urgency of his message that we are teetering on the brink of catastrophe comes through loud and clear—as does his fundamental optimism that we can still pull off a save. Urging readers to work on “ludicrously brilliant new ideas” of their own, he closes with a flurry of “Invention Starter” prompts. The small line-drawn cartoon figures in his illustrations have skin the color of the page.
Silly fun with a serious purpose. (bibliography, glossary, index, afterword) (Graphic nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: yesterday
ISBN: 9798765647073
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
Readers will need to strap on their helmets and prepare for a wild ride.
Disaster overtakes a group of sixth graders on a leadership-building white-water rafting trip.
Deep in the Montana wilderness, a dam breaks, and the resultant rush sweeps away both counselors, the rafts, and nearly all the supplies, leaving five disparate preteens stranded in the wilderness far from where they were expected to be. Narrator Daniel is a mild White kid who’s resourceful and good at keeping the peace but given to worrying over his mentally ill father. Deke, also White, is a determined bully, unwilling to work with and relentlessly taunting the others, especially Mia, a Latina, who is a natural leader with a plan. Tony, another White boy, is something of a friendly follower and, unfortunately, attaches himself to Deke while Imani, a reserved African American girl, initially keeps her distance. After the disaster, Deke steals the backpack with the remaining food and runs off with Tony, and the other three resolve to do whatever it takes to get it back, eventually having to confront the dangerous bully. The characters come from a variety of backgrounds but are fairly broadly drawn; still, their breathlessly perilous situation keeps the tale moving briskly forward, with one threatening situation after another believably confronting them. As he did with Wildfire (2019), Newbery Honoree Philbrick has crafted another action tale for young readers that’s impossible to put down.
Readers will need to strap on their helmets and prepare for a wild ride. (Fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-64727-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
A picture book combines the exuberance of children and the drama found in nature for a sly lesson on power-sharing. Henderson (Newborn, 1999, etc.) lands on the wide reaches of a windy beach where young Jim expansively flings wide his arms and claims “All this is mine!” So it seems until the wind blows in a gale so violent that it smashes objects and tears “through the dreams of people sleeping.” An eerie series of black-and-white paintings shows the white-capped waves breaking ever higher and crashing inland; these are so frightening that Jim cries out to his mother, “The sea! It’s coming!” Happily enough, Jim and his mother are able to run up the hill to a grandmother’s house where they weather the storm safely. The next time Jim speaks to the wind, on a much quieter beach, he whispers, “All this is yours.” Large type, appealing pastel illustrations, and a dose of proper perspective on humankind’s power over nature make this book a fine choice for story hours as well as nature collections. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7636-0904-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999
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