Why are the Ice Caps Melting? The Dangers of Global Warming
by Anne Rockwell; illustrated by Paul Meisel
In Arctic Waters
by Laura Crawford; illustrated by Ben Hodson
The hubby brought home a bootleg copy of “An Inconvenient Truth” recently and it proved an unlikely hit with Seth. His rave review convinced his preschool teacher to rent it. “The ice melting is really silly!” is about as profound as he gets, so he’s probably qualified to serve on a presidential panel.
Unlike that documentary, these two books are specifically aimed at kids. They arrived on the same day from separate publishers; I don’t know if I would’ve thought to pair them otherwise.
In Arctic Waters deals solely with the arctic food chain from a hapless fish to an Inuit hunter using cumulative verses. Crawford weaves together facts on each creature into each rhyming stanza. We meet one after another, building suspense through repetition as we sweat it out for that poor fish.
Hodson also brings a naturalist's eye to animal movement and expression that steers clear of cutesy while anthropomorphising the creatures enough to make them more appealing to kids.
As with most Sylvan Dell titles, there's a section in the back with more facts and an activity. No, there's no global warming, but a few reads and your kid will get a sense of what we're losing when you hit him or her with Ice Caps.
Rating: *\*\
I wish the folks at HarperCollins who publish this Let’s-Read-And-Find-Out series would take a page from Sylvan Dell: scientific books for kids needn’t be so dry. Both titles have been vetted by the appropriate scientists and wildlife experts, both are painstakingly researched, but you really feel it with Ice Caps.
It covers the same territory as Al Gore, but not as fun, if you can believe it. Its graphics can't compete with animation of a drowning polar bear or Matt Groening's cartoon of a thuggish mob of pollutants. It does a yoeman's job of describing global warming's causes and how we can do our part to lessen the damage.
I say pair it with the arctic book or the documentary to mask its narrative flaws and drive the point home. It's still the most factual treatment I've seen on this controversial subject that's aimed at kids.
Though I have a couple nits to pick with Ice Caps. It gives too much credence to the naysayers and nutjobs who don't believe in global warming. Even a single page is too much.
It also makes no mention that the number one source of greenhouse
gases isn’t cars or trash; it’s decomposing poop from livestock. That
seems like a big fact to leave out. But then, as a vegetarian, I'm not exactly unbiased on the subject.
Rating: *\*\
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