Publisher: TOON Books
Release Date: September 5, 2018
Price: $12.95
Creator: Jordan Crane
Format: 32 pgs., Full-Color, 9.25"x6.25", Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-9431-4535-5
Age Rating: Early readers
ICv2 Rating: 4 Stars out of 5
This is a beautifully crafted book which is attempting to explain the world and the way it works to early readers. I am not certain that this will work, but the beauty of the artwork may get readers to pick up the book and enjoy it on another level, as a simple book.
That said, libraries and bookstores may decide to put this book in the "picture book" section, instead of with graphic novels, because its format really does push the boundaries of the form. Each page consists of a single illustration, as with picture books, and includes only a few words, usually only a sentence fragment. The actual text is less than a hundred words.
Some of the concepts, ranging from atoms to universal connectivity, will probably go over the heads of young readers, but they ways in which these concepts are illustrated is the reason they will sit and turn the pages. Other pages, illustrating things like rain, the growth of seeds, and a worm eating an apple, will be easier for them to read, and the familiarity will also help. The story, though, just may not work for the intended audience.
That doesn’t mean that this is a bad book, by any means. Kids will enjoy it, but maybe not for the reasons the author was hoping they would.
--Nick Smith: Library Technician, Community Services, for the Pasadena Public Library in California.