Following the successful format of their first collaboration, Gorilla Walk (1999), the Lewins share their four-day search to observe African elephants firsthand. The enthusiastic, conversational text, vivid with descriptive detail, relates each morning and late-afternoon venture within the Moremi Reserve in Botswana. Elephants elude them the first three days and the beginning of the fourth, but they encounter hippos, lions, kudus, wild dogs, warthogs, Cape buffalo, and giraffes aplenty. Then on day four—success: “Suddenly, shrill trumpets sound behind every tree. We’ve found the elephants at last! In a pool deep in the mopane scrub, the giants of this garden squeal and splash and flap their ears, looking as joyful as we feel.” The small field sketches, providing visual details of their adventure, are a perfect complement to the lush, realistic watercolor spreads of the wildlife in their habitat. A beginning hand-drawn map sets the location, and two pages of facts about these largest of land mammals and an index conclude the attractive package. A winner that transports the reader to an unfamiliar locale full of wonder. (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-10)
Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2000
ISBN: 0-688-14111-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2000
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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