A whiz-kid comes up with an invention to stop time.
Elliot hates how bedtime stops his fun every day, so he creates zany inventions to slow the progression of time. His exasperated parents punish him with an even earlier bedtime, telling him, “Because at the end of the day, son, it’s time to go to bed.” This curt rationale leads Elliot to dream up an invention to make “a day that never ends.” He researches a plan with the unwitting school librarian, Mr. Takaki, who explains how the Earth spins on its axis to create the movement from day to night. Inspired, Elliot creates the Sun-Snagger 5000 with magnets, balloons, and a windmill with the hours marked on its vanes in his backyard. Readers must suspend a lot of disbelief to accept that the rickety, homemade contraption stops the Earth’s rotation, achieving his goal of stopping time. At first, Elliot is delighted by the never-ending day, but he soon realizes that an eternal day means no more birthdays, or holidays, or growing up. So he simply turns off the invention, delivering an anticlimactic end to the story, which is weakly remedied by his little sister’s sly, final-page invention to create an eternal night. Elliot and his family present white in the stiff illustrations, which verge on caricature.
Something of a snooze. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-553-53561-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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Robo-parents Diode and Lugnut present daughter Cathode with a new little brother—who requires, unfortunately, some assembly.
Arriving in pieces from some mechanistic version of Ikea, little Flange turns out to be a cute but complicated tyke who immediately falls apart…and then rockets uncontrollably about the room after an overconfident uncle tinkers with his basic design. As a squad of helpline techies and bevies of neighbors bearing sludge cake and like treats roll in, the cluttered and increasingly crowded scene deteriorates into madcap chaos—until at last Cath, with help from Roomba-like robodog Sprocket, stages an intervention by whisking the hapless new arrival off to a backyard workshop for a proper assembly and software update. “You’re such a good big sister!” warbles her frazzled mom. Wiesner’s robots display his characteristic clean lines and even hues but endearingly look like vaguely anthropomorphic piles of random jet-engine parts and old vacuum cleaners loosely connected by joints of armored cable. They roll hither and thither through neatly squared-off panels and pages in infectiously comical dismay. Even the end’s domestic tranquility lasts only until Cathode spots the little box buried in the bigger one’s packing material: “TWINS!” (This book was reviewed digitally with 9-by-22-inch double-page spreads viewed at 52% of actual size.)
A retro-futuristic romp, literally and figuratively screwy. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-544-98731-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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Rhymed couplets convey the story of a girl who likes to build things but is shy about it. Neither the poetry nor Rosie’s projects always work well.
Rosie picks up trash and oddments where she finds them, stashing them in her attic room to work on at night. Once, she made a hat for her favorite zookeeper uncle to keep pythons away, and he laughed so hard that she never made anything publicly again. But when her great-great-aunt Rose comes to visit and reminds Rosie of her own past building airplanes, she expresses her regret that she still has not had the chance to fly. Great-great-aunt Rose is visibly modeled on Rosie the Riveter, the iconic, red-bandanna–wearing poster woman from World War II. Rosie decides to build a flying machine and does so (it’s a heli-o-cheese-copter), but it fails. She’s just about to swear off making stuff forever when Aunt Rose congratulates her on her failure; now she can go on to try again. Rosie wears her hair swooped over one eye (just like great-great-aunt Rose), and other figures have exaggerated hairdos, tiny feet and elongated or greatly rounded bodies. The detritus of Rosie’s collections is fascinating, from broken dolls and stuffed animals to nails, tools, pencils, old lamps and possibly an erector set. And cheddar-cheese spray.
Earnest and silly by turns, it doesn’t quite capture the attention or the imagination, although surely its heart is in the right place. (historical note) (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0845-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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