Should get young entomologists buzzing.
Bug enthusiast Mellie helps new kid Jason feel the excitement when Science Club takes part in the titular community-science event.
Jason is dubious about spending the afternoon looking for stinging insects, and Mellie would really rather be paired with best friend Sylvie instead of Jason. But as Mellie explains the differences among the pollinating insects that they spot and marks their tally card, Jason warms to the activity and Mellie warms to Jason. Between Ms. Bombus’ gentle instruction and eager Mellie’s contributions, young listeners will learn a lot about both the Great Pollinator Count and many of the plants and insects that make up a healthy North American pollinator ecosystem. Coleman’s bright illustrations feature stylized but recognizable blooms; the bugs that visit them are depicted out of scale for visibility but are otherwise rendered accurately. Mellie’s descriptions include mnemonics: A carpenter bee has a “shiny hiney,” and wasps and hornets have “skinny-mini” waists. While the story’s focus is educational, Richmond takes care to develop narrator Mellie’s character fully; the youngster is a know-it-all with depth. Mellie has parchment-colored skin and bushy blond hair, Jason has light-brown skin and curly brown hair, and Sylvie presents East Asian. Ms. Bombus has dark-brown skin and dark hair, and the Science Club members are racially diverse. Backmatter offers more information on pollination and pollinators.
Should get young entomologists buzzing. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781682636084
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Margaret Quinlin Books/Peachtree
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor
Having surveyed worms, spiders, flies, and head lice, Gravel continues her Disgusting Critters series with a quick hop through toad fact and fancy.
The facts are briefly presented in a hand-lettered–style typeface frequently interrupted by visually emphatic interjections (“TOXIN,” “PREY,” “EWWW!”). These are, as usual, paired to simply drawn cartoons with comments and punch lines in dialogue balloons. After casting glances at the common South American ancestor of frogs and toads, and at such exotic species as the Emei mustache toad (“Hey ladies!”), Gravel focuses on the common toad, Bufo bufo. Using feminine pronouns throughout, she describes diet and egg-laying, defense mechanisms, “warts,” development from tadpole to adult, and of course how toads shed and eat their skins. Noting that global warming and habitat destruction have rendered some species endangered or extinct, she closes with a plea and, harking back to those South American origins, an image of an outsized toad, arm in arm with a dark-skinned lad (in a track suit), waving goodbye: “Hasta la vista!”
A light dose of natural history, with occasional “EWWW!” for flavor . (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-77049-667-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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