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GEORGIA'S TERRIFIC, COLORIFIC EXPERIMENT

Emotionally satisfying and visually appealing, Georgia’s story is fun to peruse.

Georgia is a science lover stuck in a family of artists—but can art and science work together to make something greater than the sum of its parts?

Science fascinates Georgia, “from the vastness of the cosmos to the cell structures of plants and animals.” She admires the scientific experiments of the greats, such as Curie, Galileo, and Newton. One day, she is inspired to create her own unique experiment, but when she tells her family about her idea, they all offer help of the artistic variety. Georgia does not think art will help her scientific pursuits. After a shouting match with her brother, she stalks off to her lab. When inspiration fails to strike, she realizes that trying something new requires creativity…and that science has more in common with art than she thought. Georgia and her family find common ground and help each other in their pursuits. Rainbows of color in streaks, shapes, and swirls fill each busy spread. Georgia and family are various shades of brown with wavy hair. While real children are constantly experimenting, the idea of being a “TRUE scientist” will resonate with some, as will the story of finding common ground after feeling at odds. There is no backmatter about the scientific content, so this book will work best when paired with other selections for more explicit introductions.

Emotionally satisfying and visually appealing, Georgia’s story is fun to peruse. (Picture book. 5-9)

Pub Date: April 2, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-7624-6524-8

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Running Press Kids

Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019

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ADA TWIST AND THE PERILOUS PANTS

From the Questioneers series , Vol. 2

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

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THE STREET BENEATH MY FEET

An unusual offering for the young geology nerd.

This British import is an imaginatively constructed sequence of images that show a white boy examining a city pavement, clearly in London, and the sights he would see if he were able to travel down to the Earth’s core and then back again to the surface.

The geologic layers are depicted in 10 vertical spreads that require a 90-degree turn to be read and include endpapers, which open out, concertina fashion, to show the interior of the Earth to its core. Beneath the urban setting are drains, pipes, and artifacts of urban infrastructure. Below that, archaeological relics are revealed. An Underground train speeds by, and below it, a stalactite-encrusted cave yawns. Deep below the Earth’s crust, magma, the Earth’s mantle, and the inner core are shown. Turn the page to start going up again, back through the mantle to the crust, where precious minerals are revealed, then fossils, tree roots, and animal burrows, ending with the same boy in the English countryside. The painted, stenciled, and collaged illustrations are full-bleed, and the tones graduate pleasantly from light colors at the surface of the Earth to rich pinks, yellows, and oranges as readers near the Earth’s core. The text is informative, if lacking in poetry, including such nuggets as “earthworms are expert recyclers, eating dead plants in the soil.”

An unusual offering for the young geology nerd. (Informational picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: May 1, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-68297-136-9

Page Count: 20

Publisher: Words & Pictures

Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017

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