This excellent introduction to the cheetah touches upon all the salient aspects of the cat’s life: its habitat, hunting tactics (including the enormous bursts of speed), family life, prey and nemeses, and, of course, its remarkable grace and beauty. The approach Morrison (The Neptune Fountain, 1997, etc.) takes is both simple and fluent—there is much information here and it isn’t hard to digest—and the accompanying acrylic illustrations elegantly depict the African savannah. A note of drama comes in a profile of a mother and two cubs on a typical day; the mother has been unsuccessful on her last seven hunts and hunger is gnawing at her cubs. In a closing note, Morrison mentions that valuable cheetah habitat is being usurped by humans (without noting the cheetah’s critically diminished gene pool, also probably due to human intervention) and the subsequent need for its protection. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8050-5121-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1998
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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