Review by Booklist Review
Ages 3^-6. So large that its tail section alone dwarfs the giraffe and the elephant shown beside it, the blue whale gets an up-close look in this artfully composed study. Zoological facts are phrased to suit the book's inviting picture-book format. Such details as the fishy smell of the whale's breath and the deep-pitched hum it makes to communicate with other blue whales are expressed in large print and in smaller typeface simulating hand-printed anecdotes tucked alongside illustrations. Crosshatched pen-and-ink drawings, washed in the greens, blues, and salmon sands of the sea, engagingly show the blue whale in its arctic summer home, peer inside its mouth at its krill-sifting baleen plates, and observe a mother and newborn swimming together in the warm equatorial waters, where the whales spend the winter. The book will definitely satisfy youngsters' curiosity about "the biggest creature that has ever lived on Earth!" --Ellen Mandel
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3Small human figures make occasional comic appearances in the pictures, but this handsome slim volume is an informative introduction to the life of "the biggest creature that has ever lived on Earth." In an effective opening double-page scene, a young man and woman reach up toward an elephant and a giraffe, all of them standing next to the tail end of the whale, demonstrating its enormous size. Davies offers simple, lively descriptions of the blue whale's body, eating habits, child care, migration, and means of communication. "Yet, the blue whale may not be as lonely as it seems. Because sometimes it makes a huma hum so loud and so low that it can travel for thousands of miles through the seas to reach other blue whales." Maland's cross-hatched pen-and-ink drawings, washed in soft tones of blue, gray, aqua, and orange, sometimes appear as smaller, blocked scenes, but more often they fill the double-page spreads with bits of caption gracefully curving around related picture elements. A simple index appears at the front of the book, doubling as a table of contents. Some libraries may assign this to the picture-book shelves, where it will be read as a true-life story, but it will serve equally well as nonfiction. It's a pleasing choice for reading aloud or for classroom use.Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
I1="BLANK" I2="BLANKFleischman's innovative short novel is the story of an urban garden started by a child and nurtured by people of all ages and ethnic backgrounds. Each of the thirteen chapters is narrated by a different character, allowing the reader to watch as a community develops out of disconnected lives and previous suspicions. Although the total effect of the brief chapters is slightly superficial, some of the individual narratives are moving. The opening chapter about nine-year-old Kim, a Vietnamese immigrant, is a vivid portrait of a child who longs for the approval of her deceased father. The novel is didactic in purpose-folks of all ages, economic backgrounds, and ethnicities put aside their differences to create a beautiful, rich harvest-but effective in execution. From HORN BOOK, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Conversational text and soft, crosshatched pen-and-ink illustrations ebb and flow in a fluid look at the largest mammal ever to inhabit the earth. Invoking the senses, Davies describes the blue whale's physical attributes in irresistible, crystalline terms. Its skin is ``springy and smooth like a hard-boiled egg, and it's as slippery as wet soap.'' The enormity of the blue whale comes into focus in the illustrations that place it next to a giraffe and an elephant, bringing it into the everyday realm of children. The scale of this leviathan becomes even clearer when Davies notes that its eyes are the size of teacups and its ears are no larger than the end of a pencil. She covers its yearly migration, and its diet of 30 million tiny krill in just a day. Undulating bold text provides auxiliary facts that complement the main story. Effective use of shrinking and expanding typeface and the inclusion of two human observers accentuate the proportional vastness of both the creature and its ocean. This unassuming book is teeming with new discoveries upon each rereading. (index) (Picture book/nonfiction. 4-9)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
