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FOOTPRINTS ON THE MOON

Name: FOOTPRINTS ON THE MOON
Author: Mark Haddon
ISBN: 978-0-7636-4440-6

by Mark Haddon and illustrated by Christian Birmingham ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2009

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This memory-piece will resonate more with adults of a certain age than with children, but it is a pleasant enough interlude regardless. A grown narrator describes a little boy who years ago “had the solar system on his wall.” Heightened, emotive language describes his particular fascination with the moon, “a small and bald and ordinary / globe of rock / that looped-the-loop / its way through outer space.” This builds to the night of the moon landing, when the little boy sneaks downstairs to watch and “[walk] with them” on television. Birmingham supplies equally emotional illustrations, the slightly-out-of-focus look reinforcing the sense of misty memory. Three wordless double-page spreads take narrator and readers to the lunar surface, the third one placing a boy-sized astronaut right there with Armstrong and Aldrin. In a season full of such exemplary offerings as Brian Floca’s Moonshot (2009), this import, first published in Britain in 1996, ranks as an additional purchase, though it will strike a chord with other moon-watchers whose childhoods included that momentous small step. (Picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: March 1, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-7636-4440-6

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Candlewick

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2009

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORICAL FICTION | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
BOOM!
by Mark Haddon

- BOOK REVIEW
OCEAN STAR EXPRESS
by Mark Haddon & illustrated by Peter Sutton

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BUTT OR FACE?

by Kari Lavelle ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2023

A gleeful game for budding naturalists.

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Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.

In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: July 11, 2023

ISBN: 9781728271170

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore

Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
ODE TO GRAPEFRUIT
by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Bryan Collier

- BOOK REVIEW
WE MOVE THE WORLD
by Kari Lavelle ; illustrated by Nabi H. Ali

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MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE

by Marie Bradby & illustrated by Chris K. Soentpiet ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1995

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An inspiring story of young boy's compelling desire to read. As a boy of nine, Booker works in a salt mine from the dark of early morning to the gloom of night, hungry for a meal, but even hungrier to learn to read. Readers follow him on his quest in Malden, Virginia, where he finds inspiration in a man ``brown as me'' reading a newspaper on a street corner. An alphabet book helps, but Booker can't make the connection to words. Seeking out ``that brown face of hope'' once again, Booker gains a sense of the sounds represented by letters, and these become his deliverance. Bradby's fine first book is tautly written, with a poetic, spiritual quality in every line. The beautifully executed, luminous illustrations capture the atmosphere of an African-American community post-slavery: the drudgery of days consumed by back- breaking labor, the texture of private lives conducted by lantern- light. There is no other context or historical note about Booker T. Washington's life, leaving readers to piece together his identity. Regardless, this is an immensely satisfying, accomplished work, resonating first with longing and then with joy. (Picture book. 5- 8)