A big win for classroom use or individual research thanks to its captivating photos and smooth introductions of new concepts.
An accessible introduction to rain forests of the world by Senisi (Steel Drumming at the Apollo, 2015, etc.) featuring immersive animal and plant photographs by Marent (Butterflies, 2015, etc.).
The book takes place over the course of a single day and begins in the morning with a picture of sunlight shining down through the rain forest “canopy”—the first of the potentially challenging new vocabulary words for emergent readers, defined in a glossary. As the sun reaches its way down to the “understory” (another new vocabulary term), so do the photos, finding a katydid crawling on some twisted roots that are reminiscent of the work of M.C. Escher. As the light hits the forest floor, the waterfalls and brilliant, teal body of water almost glow. A proboscis monkey eats a leaf, which will make readers either laugh or draw back at its weird appearance. A lizard in India watches for predators, and immediately afterward, a snake eats a similar-looking lizard in Peru (“Watch out! Gulp!”). Next, a parade of creatures (including a single-file line of flatid leaf-bugs) shows how they protect themselves from predators: the bugs with their numbers, a caterpillar with its “stinging needles,” bright blue-green stink bugs with their smell, a gecko with its leaflike camouflage, and a frog with its poison. At noon, a photograph looking down at the rain forest introduces the “emergent layer” but doesn’t show the way that sparse trees stick up from the canopy to create it, which may confuse some young readers encountering the term for the first time. The day continues with more weird, graceful creatures in brilliant color, especially an orangutan mother and baby, sure to appeal to youngsters. Teachers may be concerned that not all these animals are neighbors in real life, but a helpful caption list at the end makes it clear where in the world each image was taken. The word-to-photo ratio makes this an excellent book to share in front of a class, and confident emergent readers will enjoy tackling the new words with only a little help.
A big win for classroom use or individual research thanks to its captivating photos and smooth introductions of new concepts.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9912337-1-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Edtechlens Publishing LLC
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A spectacular return to a magical world.
Following the events of Impossible Creatures (2024), a devoted Guardian teams up with a brave princess to fight her power-hungry uncle and save the Archipelago’s dragons from a strange new threat.
Jacques the dragon summons Christopher Forrester back to the Archipelago from the human world: Dragons are dying, and no one knows why. Meanwhile, on the island of Dousha, Princess Anya’s grandfather, King Halam, has been murdered, and her father accused—though she knows he’s innocent. When Christopher and Anya take refuge on the islet of Glimt, the Berserker Nighthand helps them see how their twin missions to save the dragons and free Anya’s father are connected. They work together to create an antidote for the poison that’s killing the dragons and to keep Anya and her father safe from her murderous uncle. Meanwhile, Nighthand and Irian, the part-nereid ocean scholar, pursue their own important secret mission. Divided into three parts—“Castle,” “Dragons,” and “Revenge”—and containing elements of fairy tales, fantasy, and Shakespeare, this story continues the storyline established in the series opener, yet because it introduces new characters and obstacles, it could also stand alone. Dark-blond Anya (“five feet tall and all of it claws”) is a match for white-presenting Christopher, who, though he still misses Mal, finds that “it made a difference to have someone to move through the world with again. A friend changed the feel of the universe.” Mackenzie’s delicate, otherworldly art adorns the text.
A spectacular return to a magical world. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-15)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593809907
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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