An ideal introduction to a lesser-known scientist and an important understanding about how the Earth works.
Working in a time when women were still unwelcome in her field, Marie Tharp mapped the ocean floor and provided convincing evidence for the previously rejected hypothesis of continental drift.
Burleigh's choice to write in Tharp’s voice makes the determined geologist’s story feel immediate, focusing tightly on her map that revealed the spreading Atlantic sea floor. He notes obstacles she overcame: a peripatetic childhood; gender discrimination; the superstition, still prevalent in 1948, that women were unlucky on ships; and disagreements about the drift theory even with her friend and colleague Bruce Heezen. There’s a short description of Tharp’s mapmaking process and a triumphant conclusion when the final, color version is published. But it’s Colón's watercolor-and-pencil illustrations that bring her story alive. Readers see the map-loving child, ships taking the soundings that provided her data, the cartographer with pencil in hand, both graphing and drawing, and, in a wordless double-page spread, the exciting revelation of the rift in the middle of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The distinctive combed swirls of Colón's art masterfully suggest light on a seascape, and people are realistically depicted. Backmatter includes more of Tharp’s story, useful vocabulary, bibliography and Internet links, and even “things to wonder about and do.”
An ideal introduction to a lesser-known scientist and an important understanding about how the Earth works. (Informational picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1600-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book.
Ada Twist’s incessant stream of questions leads to answers that help solve a neighborhood crisis.
Ada conducts experiments at home to answer questions such as, why does Mom’s coffee smell stronger than Dad’s coffee? Each answer leads to another question, another hypothesis, and another experiment, which is how she goes from collecting data on backyard birds for a citizen-science project to helping Rosie Revere figure out how to get her uncle Ned down from the sky, where his helium-filled “perilous pants” are keeping him afloat. The Questioneers—Rosie the engineer, Iggy Peck the architect, and Ada the scientist—work together, asking questions like scientists. Armed with knowledge (of molecules and air pressure, force and temperature) but more importantly, with curiosity, Ada works out a solution. Ada is a recognizable, three-dimensional girl in this delightfully silly chapter book: tirelessly curious and determined yet easily excited and still learning to express herself. If science concepts aren’t completely clear in this romp, relationships and emotions certainly are. In playful full- and half-page illustrations that break up the text, Ada is black with Afro-textured hair; Rosie and Iggy are white. A closing section on citizen science may inspire readers to get involved in science too; on the other hand, the “Ode to a Gas!” may just puzzle them. Other backmatter topics include the importance of bird study and the threat palm-oil use poses to rainforests.
Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book. (Fiction. 6-9)Pub Date: April 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3422-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
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Earnest and silly by turns, it doesn’t quite capture the attention or the imagination, although surely its heart is in the...
Rhymed couplets convey the story of a girl who likes to build things but is shy about it. Neither the poetry nor Rosie’s projects always work well.
Rosie picks up trash and oddments where she finds them, stashing them in her attic room to work on at night. Once, she made a hat for her favorite zookeeper uncle to keep pythons away, and he laughed so hard that she never made anything publicly again. But when her great-great-aunt Rose comes to visit and reminds Rosie of her own past building airplanes, she expresses her regret that she still has not had the chance to fly. Great-great-aunt Rose is visibly modeled on Rosie the Riveter, the iconic, red-bandanna–wearing poster woman from World War II. Rosie decides to build a flying machine and does so (it’s a heli-o-cheese-copter), but it fails. She’s just about to swear off making stuff forever when Aunt Rose congratulates her on her failure; now she can go on to try again. Rosie wears her hair swooped over one eye (just like great-great-aunt Rose), and other figures have exaggerated hairdos, tiny feet and elongated or greatly rounded bodies. The detritus of Rosie’s collections is fascinating, from broken dolls and stuffed animals to nails, tools, pencils, old lamps and possibly an erector set. And cheddar-cheese spray.
Earnest and silly by turns, it doesn’t quite capture the attention or the imagination, although surely its heart is in the right place. (historical note) (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0845-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
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