A portrait of a first lady who hoped to make America beautiful.
According to Lady Bird Johnson, “Where flowers bloom, so does hope.”
Born into a wealthy, White family, Claudia Alta Taylor was shy and loved nature, which likely accounted for her nickname: Lady Bird, bestowed by the children of her Black nanny. Vivid, colorful, if stiffly posed illustrations and accessible text with well-chosen anecdotes (her future husband, Lyndon Baines Johnson, proposed to her on their first date) are accompanied by summarizing questions tied to the refrain “Lady Bird Johnson, that’s who!” The text describes how she struggled with shyness yet ran a company and managed the family finances, supported her husband’s political campaigns, and eventually became first lady of the United States. The relative limitations she faced are briefly mentioned: Women in the mid-20th century didn’t typically own businesses, and most first ladies didn’t work to support legislation. Overall, she is portrayed as a conservationist who tried to bring people together through her highway-beautification campaigns during a time when the American people were divided about the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. While her attempts can be seen as either visionary or superficial depending on the beholder, and other environmental advocates may have achieved more, children interested in the environment and climate change will easily see how her actions played a role in the history of environmentalism. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 78.6% of actual size.)
A portrait of a first lady who hoped to make America beautiful. (notes, bibliography, acknowledgements) (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-24036-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort.
A look at the unique ways that 11 globe-spanning animal species construct their homes.
Each creature garners two double-page spreads, which Cherrix enlivens with compelling and at-times jaw-dropping facts. The trapdoor spider constructs a hidden burrow door from spider silk. Sticky threads, fanning from the entrance, vibrate “like a silent doorbell” when walked upon by unwitting insect prey. Prairie dogs expertly dig communal burrows with designated chambers for “sleeping, eating, and pooping.” The largest recorded “town” occupied “25,000 miles and housed as many as 400 million prairie dogs!” Female ants are “industrious insects” who can remove more than a ton of dirt from their colony in a year. Cathedral termites use dirt and saliva to construct solar-cooled towers 30 feet high. Sasaki’s lively pictures borrow stylistically from the animal compendiums of mid-20th-century children’s lit; endpapers and display type elegantly suggest the blues of cyanotypes and architectural blueprints. Jarringly, the lead spread cheerfully extols the prowess of the corals of the Great Barrier Reef, “the world’s largest living structure,” while ignoring its accelerating, human-abetted destruction. Calamitously, the honeybee hive is incorrectly depicted as a paper-wasps’ nest, and the text falsely states that chewed beeswax “hardens into glue to shape the hive.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort. (selected sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-5625-9
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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