Full of fascinating answers to the question “How do animals do it?”
Courtship, mating, birth, and child rearing are common across the animal world, but the details can be surprising.
The German creators of Tell Me: What Children Really Want To Know About Bodies, Sex, and Emotions (2020) return with this collection of intriguing facts about animal reproduction, which might be termed a book of carnal knowledge for middle-grade and middle school readers. Sex-educator von der Gathen organizes her material into three major subjects: courting, mating, and babies. Subdivisions within each section group examples of the wide array of techniques adopted by different species. For example, seduction includes showy appearances, dances, attractive smells, songs, and battles with rivals. Each example describes the activities of a single species in a paragraph or two of exposition, delivered in a cheerful, informal tone, smoothly translated, and illustrated with an amusing cartoon of the animals described. Each section also includes pages of illustrated comparisons, with helpful labels. One set shows a variety of mating positions; another spotlights “ingenious genitalia”; there are animal babies. Examples include both vertebrates and invertebrates. Readers can make human connections, but the writer doesn’t. What she does do is to demonstrate the wonder of species reproduction as well as her respect for her audience with frankness and good humor. They will find it irresistible in tone and content.
Full of fascinating answers to the question “How do animals do it?” (index) (Nonfiction. 8-15)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-776572-91-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Gecko Press
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.
This book is buzzing with trivia.
Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Contentwise, an arbitrary assortment…but sure to draw fans of comics, of science, or of both.
Flash, Batman, and other characters from the DC Comics universe tackle supervillains and STEM-related topics and sometimes, both.
Credited to 20 writers and illustrators in various combinations, the 10 episodes invite readers to tag along as Mera and Aquaman visit oceanic zones from epipelagic to hadalpelagic; Supergirl helps a young scholar pick a science-project topic by taking her on a tour of the solar system; and Swamp Thing lends Poison Ivy a hand to describe how DNA works (later joining Swamp Kid to scuttle a climate-altering scheme by Arcane). In other episodes, various costumed creations explain the ins and outs of diverse large- and small-scale phenomena, including electricity, atomic structure, forensic techniques, 3-D printing, and the lactate threshold. Presumably on the supposition that the characters will be more familiar to readers than the science, the minilectures tend to start from simple basics, but the figures are mostly both redrawn to look more childlike than in the comics and identified only in passing. Drawing styles and page designs differ from chapter to chapter but not enough to interrupt overall visual unity and flow—and the cast is sufficiently diverse to include roles for superheroes (and villains) of color like Cyborg, Kid Flash, and the Latina Green Lantern, Jessica Cruz. Appended lists of websites and science-based YouTube channels, plus instructions for homespun activities related to each episode, point inspired STEM-winders toward further discoveries.
Contentwise, an arbitrary assortment…but sure to draw fans of comics, of science, or of both. (Graphic nonfiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77950-382-4
Page Count: 160
Publisher: DC
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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