There’s a lot to love here for readers who can look past those pronouns.
A book of poetry that celebrates trees.
Each double-page spread has a nonrhyming poem about a specific type of tree accompanied by art showing the tree in its environment. The first spread is the only one divergent from the pattern, with this pleasant, succinct introduction: “Each tree offers / a story / a clue / a dance / that makes it / its very own / self.” These words show up clearly in white against a gray-green late-autumn background. Different varieties of trees along with several people can be seen from an aerial view as bright leaves swirl about. There is a feeling of exuberance. Throughout the well-laid-out book, the art, a skilled merging of printmaking and digital techniques, deftly complements the text, using facts about each tree to create divergent moods—including a surprisingly foreboding mood at the end. Language is elegant and accessible, with personification as the useful, key poetic device. One significant shortcoming: Every tree-descriptive poem but the final two contains a gender-specific—and often stereotypical—pronoun. Some of the funnier poems require gender for their imagery, such as imagining a scraggly white pine as an “unruly uncle.” However, unnecessarily, the musical maple offers “her” sap after a long, dark winter; “Silly Palm” wears all “her” leaves on top; the mighty oak is, of course, male. Fortunately, the art for each tree is realistic, if stylized. If the aspen danced on its “tippy toes,” readers would still see the same tree swaying in the wind.
There’s a lot to love here for readers who can look past those pronouns. (Picture book/poetry. 4-8)Pub Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4814-4707-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
A solid addition to Rotner’s seasonal series. Bring on summer.
Rotner follows up her celebrations of spring and autumn with this look at all things winter.
Beginning with the signs that winter is coming—bare trees, shorter days, colder temperatures—Rotner eases readers into the season. People light fires and sing songs on the solstice, trees and plants stop growing, and shadows grow long. Ice starts to form on bodies of water and windows. When the snow flies, the fun begins—bundle up and then build forts, make snowballs and snowmen (with eyebrows!), sled, ski (nordic is pictured), skate, snowshoe, snowboard, drink hot chocolate. Animals adapt to the cold as well. “Birds grow more feathers” (there’s nothing about fluffing and air insulation) and mammals, more hair. They have to search for food, and Rotner discusses how many make or find shelter, slow down, hibernate, or go underground or underwater to stay warm. One page talks about celebrating holidays with lights and decorations. The photos show a lit menorah, an outdoor deciduous tree covered in huge Christmas bulbs, a girl next to a Chinese dragon head, a boy with lit luminarias, and some fireworks. The final spread shows signs of the season’s shift to spring. Rotner’s photos, as always, are a big draw. The children are a marvelous mix of cultures and races, and all show their clear delight with winter.
A solid addition to Rotner’s seasonal series. Bring on summer. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3976-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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
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