Levinson and Hearn (Death Valley: A Day in the Desert, 2001) join forces again for another exploration of intriguing areas, focusing this time on the geographical regions of the North and South Poles. The informative text, written at the 2.6 grade level in short sentences, is set in large type with a short line length. The text blocks are skillfully integrated into the double-page-spread illustrations, against expanses of palest blue snow or midnight blue skies. Hearn shows interesting icebergs, wildlife popular with children (whales and penguins), scientific research stations, and the amazing northern lights. Levinson competently explains some difficult concepts relating to the poles, such as the imaginary line forming the axis through the earth and the scientific concepts causing day and night and the seasons. After explaining the basic idea and location of the two poles, the author first concentrates on the North Pole, detailing its geography and wildlife, then moves on to a separate discussion of the South Pole. This organizational scheme works well to distinguish the two areas as very different, while still sharing some common features. While this effort is intended as an easy reader, it is also informative enough for school reports and interesting enough to use as a read-aloud for science and geography lessons in the early grades. (Easy reader/nonfiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-8234-1737-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2002
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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