In the most compelling tour for younger children since Jane Yolen’s Welcome to the Green House (1993), Katz presents 19 wonderfully evocative glimpses, mostly in rhyme, of rain-forest flora and fauna. Encountering huge spiders, rainbow-fledged birds, walking trees, a giant armadillo sporting a “hundred-tooth smile and his own suit of armor, / He’s really a one-in-a-million-y charmer” and other memorable denizens, Katz transports readers to exotic, mysterious locales, “Where purple flowers float like butterflies, / We listen for the jaguar’s grunting call. / The air’s so hot and wet it’s hard to breathe. / The darkness seems alive—it watches us.” Using plenty of greens and yellows, Christiansen provides a dense, leafy setting through which a tiger and an immense anaconda glide, while a gigantic rafflesia flower swells on the ground, and birds and reptiles flit about the high canopies. Though she casts an occasional glance elsewhere, Katz generally stays in the South and Central American rain forests: Still, capped by specific notes and a tour of rain forests worldwide, her insights make essential reading for every child. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-11)
Pub Date: March 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-029791-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Thought-provoking and charming.
A sophisticated robot—with the capacity to use senses of sight, hearing, and smell—is washed to shore on an island, the only robot survivor of a cargo of 500.
When otters play with her protective packaging, the robot is accidently activated. Roz, though without emotions, is intelligent and versatile. She can observe and learn in service of both her survival and her principle function: to help. Brown links these basic functions to the kind of evolution Roz undergoes as she figures out how to stay dry and intact in her wild environment—not easy, with pine cones and poop dropping from above, stormy weather, and a family of cranky bears. She learns to understand and eventually speak the language of the wild creatures (each species with its different “accent”). An accident leaves her the sole protector of a baby goose, and Roz must ask other creatures for help to shelter and feed the gosling. Roz’s growing connection with her environment is sweetly funny, reminiscent of Randall Jarrell’s The Animal Family. At every moment Roz’s actions seem plausible and logical yet surprisingly full of something like feeling. Robot hunters with guns figure into the climax of the story as the outside world intrudes. While the end to Roz’s benign and wild life is startling and violent, Brown leaves Roz and her companions—and readers—with hope.
Thought-provoking and charming. (Science fiction/fantasy. 7-11)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-38199-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.
This book is buzzing with trivia.
Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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