Once a vast wetlands west of New York City, home to Native Americans and extensive wildlife, New Jersey’s Meadowlands was diked and drained by early European settlers and later developed and trashed. In the last 40 years, with dumping stopped and restoration begun, some wildlife has returned. Reminiscent of Lynne Cherry's A River Ran Wild (1992) in its subject and design, this appealing story of environmental recovery is simpler in its text and even clearer in its illustrations. Beginning with the Lenni Lanape and ending with a 21st-century child on a field trip, Yezerski surveys human uses as well as the disappearance and reappearance of other forms of life. Detailed ink-and-watercolor illustrations stretch across double-page spreads. A straightforward narrative runs below, and the whole is framed with colored sketches of relevant objects and creatures, each meticulously drawn and helpfully labeled. One page shows industrial products and means of transport, another shows the varied contents of a trash mountain and a third the components of modern residential and commercial development. These are followed by pages showing marsh plants, worms and insects, some of the many varieties of fish that visit the waters, animals that live on the banks and birds that live there or stop by during migration. Though the area described is small, it is representative of wetlands in many parts of the country. The only flaw in this valuable addition to environmental-studies collections is the lack of compass rose on the oddly oriented title-page map. A spectacular offering nevertheless. (author's note, selected bibliography, websites) (Informational picture book. 6-10)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-34913-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book.
Ada Twist’s incessant stream of questions leads to answers that help solve a neighborhood crisis.
Ada conducts experiments at home to answer questions such as, why does Mom’s coffee smell stronger than Dad’s coffee? Each answer leads to another question, another hypothesis, and another experiment, which is how she goes from collecting data on backyard birds for a citizen-science project to helping Rosie Revere figure out how to get her uncle Ned down from the sky, where his helium-filled “perilous pants” are keeping him afloat. The Questioneers—Rosie the engineer, Iggy Peck the architect, and Ada the scientist—work together, asking questions like scientists. Armed with knowledge (of molecules and air pressure, force and temperature) but more importantly, with curiosity, Ada works out a solution. Ada is a recognizable, three-dimensional girl in this delightfully silly chapter book: tirelessly curious and determined yet easily excited and still learning to express herself. If science concepts aren’t completely clear in this romp, relationships and emotions certainly are. In playful full- and half-page illustrations that break up the text, Ada is black with Afro-textured hair; Rosie and Iggy are white. A closing section on citizen science may inspire readers to get involved in science too; on the other hand, the “Ode to a Gas!” may just puzzle them. Other backmatter topics include the importance of bird study and the threat palm-oil use poses to rainforests.
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3422-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Models attention to detail and deductive reasoning in a fun beach setting, complete with interesting facts.
Beachcombers and shell seekers, gather ’round and meet Shelby and Watts, Planetary Investigators.
When Fred the hermit crab can’t find a new, larger shell to move into, he seeks out the “brilliant brains” of Shelby and Watts. Shelby, a fox, is the detective in the duo, and Watts, a badger, loves facts, adding simple fun ones—about hermit crabs, tides, tide-pool dwellers, how shells are used, etc.—throughout the story. Watts also loves to catalog clues in his notebook. In fact, the first mystery that Shelby solves is that of Watts’ lost notebook. Young readers can watch Shelby investigate, solve, and explain her deductive process, all while learning to carefully examine all the details in each graphic panel. Once the missing shells are found, it’s “time for the hermit crab shuffle,” in which the members of a colony of hermit crabs all line up and trade up to larger homes. Final pages include “Earth-Saving Tips from Shelby & Watts,” such as taking pictures of shells instead of collecting them, eating seafood from sustainable sources, and cleaning up the beach. The seven chapters are of varying length, but with several one-panel pages and many pages with low word count, the book is shorter than it appears, which should be a confidence boost for young readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Models attention to detail and deductive reasoning in a fun beach setting, complete with interesting facts. (Graphic early reader/mystery. 6-9)Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-20531-0
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021
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