Review by New York Times Review
ONE OF MY DAUGHTERS recently asked, "Does my reflection in the mirror have a heart?" Her question, like a koan, kept knocking around my brain for weeks. The oblivious disrupter does that, opening familiar eyes to fresh views, tripping into philosophical challenges. A good picture book can capture this bumbling genius of children and animals, as these four new ones do. They are winning documents of the clumsy, unintended revelation. Badger brothers Tic and Tac are bored in "Laundry Day," by Jessixa Bagley ("Boats for Papa"). They have built a fort, fished, and read all their books forward and backward. Then their mother asks, "Well, would you like to help me hang the laundry?" Their response is enthusiastic, so much so that she's free to slip off to the market while they handle the clothesline. Only one problem. They run out of clean clothes. What follows is an act of exuberant excavation. The boys empty the house of all its contents, sacrificing utility, comfort and convenience to the joy of the clothesline, to the open air. They hang combs, alarm clocks, carrots and checkerboards, apple cores, roller skates, LPs, plungers and paintings. The vibrant array of objects is matched by the book's brilliant color and the moments of delightful minutiae present in each illustration. This Marie Kondo-esque meditation on objects and their uses evolves into an exploration of the nature of play and work. On her return, the wise matriarch surrenders to her sons' reinvention of laundry. Why resist? Why hold on to the labors we never wanted in the first place? The boys themselves, freshly bored, imagine the other domestic arenas where their riotous skills might be best put to use. Dinner? "Tidy," another badger book, this one created by Emily Gravett, reminds me of my onetime Brooklyn landlady. Returning home once, I entered the paved-over garden of her home. She spied a bunch of chard peeking out the top of my grocery bag. "Yick," she said. "Green things." "Tidy's" badger, unlike Tic and Tac, is an efficient fellow named Pete. He decides he needs to clean up the forest. Off-color blossoms are pruned while woodland animals are scrubbed. Explosive portraits of nature meet a disciplined hand, reverent of detail. Fallen leaves are bagged in plastic, and ultimately all the trees are removed so that a neat, thick layer of convenient concrete can be poured over all that icky mud. The horror is complete. "This forest is practically perfect," Pete says. It resembles a parking lot. But soon he is tired and hungry and these woods are no longer a poor man's overcoat. There are no bugs or worms to catch for dinner. The door to Pete's cozy burrow is covered in cement. Pete raises a good question about the role of the oblivious disrupter. Where do dumb and discovery meet? Or how does dumb stop being dumb? Most poignantly here, in Pete's brave, sad confession, one I wish we heard more often: "I have made a mistake." Failure is the most tested tool of learning. While some mistakes of environmental destruction might take a bit longer to correct than those in picture books, Gravett leaves her reader content in a messy, happy, blissfully imperfect restored forest, filled with perfectly imperfect creatures. It is in this kind of forest that Paul Meisel's "My Awesome Summer by P. Mantis" picks up, with illustrations that lead a reader into the large happenings of the smallest of worlds. This celebration of nature's strangenesses and wild wonders is narrated by a hungry praying mantis, those creatures of such bright green intensity and surprising camouflage, spotting one can cause a temporary opening in the fabric of a day, a moment of pause in an otherwise hectic, distracted life. Meisel leads his reader through three seasons with this fascinating critter. Along the way, we confront confounding nature. "I'm hungry. Growing so fast!" our narrator says. "I ate one of my brothers. O.K., maybe two." Between multiple (hysterical) acts of cannibalism, our narrator hides like a stick, sheds her skin, tricks predators, and eventually learns how to fly. She is humorously unapologetic - she is who she is, in all her wonder. And, she is hungry. As a reader learns much about this marvelous creature - for example, praying mantises are the only insects that can turn their heads from side to side - it is not hard to begin to wonder: What odd human behaviors might themselves boggle the mind of the majestic praying mantis? We are a curiosity, and we are curious. Why are we here if not to explore the wonder of this world? Even if sometimes we do this by stumbling into and through our explorations. In Jon Agee's "Life on Mars," a young astronaut has made his way to the red planet. The appeal of these pages comes in the juxtaposition of the brightest reds and yellows against a space palette of subdued grays and black. We learn that our astronaut is looking for life and that he is considered "crazy" for doing so. "Nobody believes there is life on Mars. But I do." His conviction in himself is hopeful. He's brought chocolate cupcakes to aid in his search, a bit of bait, a gesture of friendship. But as the drabness of the planet and the critical voices back home overwhelm our hero with self-doubt, he fails to notice he's being followed by a friendly-looking, large red Martian. As disappointment and doubt mount, he misplaces his box of cupcakes and his spaceship. It is in this darkest moment of feeling lost that our young astronaut at last spies a brilliant yellow flower growing in the gray. He is delighted. He has found life. After scaling an oddly shaped red Martian, I mean, mountain, he's reunited with his cupcake box and his spaceship. While he leaves the Martian unmet, we are made hopeful by fresh questions and mysteries about our ultimately unknowable and inexhaustibly interesting universe. Each of these four books invites us to be fearless with our faults and bold in our explorations, and to remember wonder is never withdrawn. Each may also serve to remind some readers of their Samuel Beckett, in case they have somehow forgotten the Irish absurdist's refrain. "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." SAMANTHA HUNT is the author of novels including, most recently, "Mr. Splitfoot."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 1, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
On May 17, a praying mantis emerges, along with 150 of her brothers and sisters. Five months later, she returns to the same bush to lay eggs for another generation to be born. What happens in between is a fact-filled, humorous look at the life of a praying mantis. Told in diary format and in short sentences, narrator P. Mantis shows what life is like for her and her fellow mantises. This includes everything from hiding from predators by pretending to be a stick, eating aphids, eating her brothers and sisters (yikes!), and shedding skin over and over again. There's lots to learn here, especially because a praying mantis may not be so well known, and Meisel provides additional facts on the end papers. The bright, large-scale illustrations are full of details, which readers will likely delight in poring over, especially in wide-angle scenes where P. Mantis might be harder to spot. Perfect for fans of Doreen Cronin's Diary of a Worm (2003) or readers who like education with a dose of entertainment.--Linsenmeyer, Erin Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2-P. Mantis joins the world on a beautiful sunny spring day in May. She is happy to share the aphid-covered bush on which she is born with her 150 brothers and sisters. As she doesn't yet have wings, her defenses against predators include pretending to be a stick and blending in with her environment using camouflage. P. Mantis sheds her skin several times as she grows quickly over the course of the summer. When the aphids are gone, P. Mantis snacks on other insects, including her own siblings. When her wings finally come in, P. Mantis can move about more freely, but there are many dangers to avoid-spider webs, flying bats and birds, and other hungry creatures. In October, P. Mantis returns to the bush where she was born to lay her own egg case, which will hatch in the spring. As winter approaches, she settles into a deep sleep. Meisel uses gorgeous, vividly painted illustrations and a gentle text to share the story of the life cycle of a praying mantis. The book is formatted like a series of first-person journal entries, and it is easy to follow the journey of the young mantid. Children will learn the time line for each developmental stage that the insect goes through. Although the circle of life can be harsh at times, this tale is told in a light and even humorous way. Back matter is chock-full of facts that will pique the interest of those eager to learn more. VERDICT The perfect introduction to the life cycle of the praying mantis for those ready to handle a mantid-eat-mantid world.-Amy Shepherd, St. Anne's Episcopal School, Middleton, DE © Copyright 2017. 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
In a pithy journal-like text, first-person (first-insect?) narrator P. Mantis provides readers with an up-close look at her five-month-long life cycle. She begins enthusiastically: May 17. I was born today! On emerging from the egg case: May 18. It was so crowded in the egg case. Really, really crowded--me and around 150 praying mantis brothers and sisters. Spanning late spring to mid-October, her breezy entries offer intriguing information about her species growth, behavior, defenses (my cool trick, pretending to be a stick blowing in the wind), diet, and habitat. Meisels friendly digitally enhanced acrylics match the narratives informal, drily humorous tone. P. Mantis and her animal neighbors are realistically portrayed in the pictures, and Meisel manages to stay on the right side of anthropomorphism. Our guide is indistinguishable from her relatives; occasional call-outs in the art (Here I am; Im down here) offer the only clues to her whereabouts. Alarming behaviors are reported in the same matter-of-fact way as molting or locomotion: July 19. Ran into one of my brothers. He tried to eat me. So I ate him. By mid-October, after laying her eggs in the bush where I was born, she concludes, Im going to lie down now and take a long nap. Both front and back endpapers provide more-detailed information, including what actually happens at summers end: rest in peace, P. Mantis. kitty flynn (c) Copyright 2017. 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
A journallike text paired with detailed illustrations recounts the day-to-day life of a praying mantis.Born in the springtime and mature in the summer, P. Mantis' diary entries are laced with a dry humor as she recounts such adventures as shedding her skin, eating her siblings and other insects, nearly being eaten by another sibling, and enjoying the great outdoors before laying her eggs and lying down to "take a long nap" in the fall. The wry, first-person voice ("I ate one of my brothers. Okay, maybe two") seems a bit at odds with the beautiful acrylic paintings. Lush, colorful illustrations that present riots of leaves and blooms that initially capture the eye reveal garden violence on closer inspection as readers finally zero in on the protagonist chowing down on a sibling, headfirst. Their immediate loveliness may have readers wondering whether perhaps a more cartoonish style would be a better fit for the text, akin to Harry Bliss and Doreen Cronin's Diary of a Worm (2003). This general criticism aside, there's much to appreciate about this fact- and humor-laden picture book, including its front and back endpapers, which are jammed with information about praying mantises. Though the rather jarring juxtaposition of text and art styles keeps it from being totally awesome, this is a fun and fascinating read. (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
