The text may not be quite up to the pictures in this lyrical tribute to the baobab, but children will come away with at least a glimpse of the astonishing biological microcosm that grows on and near these monumental fixtures of the African plains. Wildlife positively teems in Kennaway’s clean-lined, brightly hued close-ups: great gray elephants, a regal leopard, pink and purple lizards, clusters of exotic looking birds and insects, all dependent in one way or another on the huge, long-lived, oddly upside-down-looking tree. Despite a closing spread of facts in brief, however, much of that wildlife remains unidentified, and readers will stumble over lines like, “snake snoozes softly with one beady eye,” or “delicious sweet white pulp that tastes just like wine gums!” Until Barbara Bash’s Tree of Life (1989) comes back into print, if it does, consider this a useful, attractive placeholder. (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-916291-98-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2000
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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As atmospheric as its companion, Twilight Comes Twice, this tone poem pairs poetically intense writing with luminescent oils featuring widely spaced houses, open lawns, and clumps of autumnal trees, all lit by a huge full moon. Fletcher tracks that moon’s nocturnal path in language rich in metaphor: “With silent slippers / it climbs the night stairs,” “staining earth and sky with a ghostly glow,” lighting up a child’s bedroom, the wings of a small plane, moonflowers, and, ranging further afield, harbor waves and the shells of turtle hatchlings on a beach. Using creamy brushwork and subtly muted colors, Kiesler depicts each landscape, each night creature from Luna moths to a sleepless child and her cat, as well as the great moon sweeping across star-flecked skies, from varied but never vertiginous angles. Closing with moonset, as dawn illuminates the world with a different kind of light, this makes peaceful reading either in season, or on any moonlit night. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2003
ISBN: 0-618-16451-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2003
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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A pro bono Twinkie of a book invites readers to fly off in a magic plane to bring clean water to our planet’s oceans, deserts, and brown children.
Following a confusingly phrased suggestion beneath a soft-focus world map to “touch the Earth. Now touch where you live,” a shake of the volume transforms it into a plane with eyes and feathered wings that flies with the press of a flat, gray “button” painted onto the page. Pressing like buttons along the journey releases a gush of fresh water from the ground—and later, illogically, provides a filtration device that changes water “from yucky to clean”—for thirsty groups of smiling, brown-skinned people. At other stops, a tap on the button will “help irrigate the desert,” and touching floating bottles and other debris in the ocean supposedly makes it all disappear so the fish can return. The 20 children Coh places on a globe toward the end are varied of skin tone, but three of the four young saviors she plants in the flier’s cockpit as audience stand-ins are white. The closing poem isn’t so openly parochial, though it seldom rises above vague feel-good sentiments: “Love the Earth, the moon and sun. / All the children can be one.”
“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so easy to clean the place up and give everyone a drink? (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5107-2083-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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