Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Cornelia Funke GENRE: Middle-Grade Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: April 1, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A middle-grade adventure mystery about some botanical wonders and some enigmatic old letters. Decent characters, excellent plant-related information, epistolary interludes, fun riddles, clunky plotting, too much of attraction/crush talk. I mistakenly assumed this to be a fantasy. Recommended to the target age group. Plot Preview: Twelve-year-old Caspia isn't happy when her parents tell her that they'll be spending the three months of summer in New York City. Caspia is not fond of big busy cities, and it's even worse to experience the New York heat after the cool Maine days. Things change when Caspia finds an old bundle of letters in their tiny new rental apartment. Probably belonging to the sisters who lived there long ago, each letter, written in the 1950s, contains a 'green' riddle with many clues and the answer always being from the plant kingdom....

AUTHOR: Lisa Thompson GENRE: Middle-grade Fiction. PUBLICATION DATE: May 8, 2025. RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A middle-grade fiction about a troublemaker who tries to save a tree. A good story, but some minor issues stopped it from being great. I liked the ending though, and the illustrations are excellent. This book would be a nice option for classroom discussions. Do note that one of the key themes might be upsetting to some children. Plot Preview: Twelve-year-old Noah is going through a tough time at home as his parents are on the verge of splitting up. He rebels at school and resorts to mischief, which gets him in further trouble. So when he suddenly decides to assist Grace, the goodie-goodie girl of the school, in saving an old oak tree that the council is planning to cut down for a road widening project, even Grace doesn’t trust his motives and sudden change of heart. But Noah has his secret reasons for wanting to help, and he decides to sit atop the tree until the counc...

AUTHOR: Trina Rathgeber ILLUSTRATOR: Alina Pete COLOURIST: Jillian Dolan GENRE: Middle-grade Graphic Novel. PUBLICATION DATE: RATING: 3.5 stars In a Nutshell: A middle-grade graphic novel based on a true survival story. Great intent, decent plot execution, amazing information about indigenous beliefs and life in the cold North. Plot Preview: In 1944, thirteen-year-old Ilse Schweder, who stayed with her father and her siblings near the Windy River Trading Post in northern Canada, was lost in a snowstorm. She survived in the wintry white for nine days using sheer grit and her indigenous knowledge of the terrain, until she was finally rescued. This is her survival story, written by her granddaughter. A Canadian author had documented a version of Ilse’s survival story in his 1952 book, ‘People of the Deer’. Ilse wasn’t happy with it as she felt that it wasn’t his story to tell, and that the character he wrote simply wouldn’t have survived the snowy wilderness without having the indige...

AUTHOR: Britt Crow-Miller GENRE: Children's Nonfiction, Nature PUBLICATION DATE: September 3, 2024 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: An enlightening book about the world of decomposition and decomposers. Excellent info and presentation. Much recommended! Most people go ‘Ewwwww!’ at the thought of rot, but the fact is that decomposition has a big role to play in our lives, whether within our body, on our body, in our homes and local communities, or even in the world at large. Whether we like it or not, decomposition helps keep our world clean. Decomposing matter also results in yummy food items such as sourdough bread and yoghurt. This book begins with a brief introductory note about the importance of rot and creatures who help in the rotting process. “Rot can’t happen without life and life can’t happen without rot.” – this simple and honest sentence in the note sums up how vital decomposition is to our world. I also love the correlation the note makes between composition and de...

AUTHOR: Jules Howard ILLUSTRATOR: Gosia Herba GENRE: Children's Nonfiction, Animals PUBLICATION DATE: July 4, 2024 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: An informative and entertaining book offering you a multitude of reasons why you should “respect the insect.” Love the structure, the illustrations and the content. A couple of minor points could have been tackled better, but on the whole, definitely recommended to entomophiles as well as entomophobes. Bugs always get a bad rap. To a great extent, I can understand why. They seem creepy, they crawl in nooks and crannies and spring out unexpectedly, they bite, they sting, they fly too fast to be caught,… But bugs are also amazing! Disagree? Here’s a book that aims to get you to respect insects. I love that word choice: “respect”. The plan isn’t to make you love insects but to make you appreciate them. And hopefully, not swat or squash them anymore. ( Except cockroaches and female mosquitoes! I permit you to go wild and attack them w...

AUTHOR: Selma Benkiran ILLUSTRATOR: Valeria Loskant GENRE: Children's STEM Picture Book, Inspirational RATING: 4.75 stars. In a Nutshell: An amazing picture book for older children that goes much beyond what the title promises. Informative and inspiring in all the right ways. Much recommended! Plot Preview: Young Lilo loves spending his summer vacations with his grandparents, but this year’s summer brings with it a special surprise: his parents are taking him on a month-long trip to the rainforest. Lilo is over the moon with joy, but his excitement soon peters out as he realises that there is no one to water his beloved plants when he goes on vacation. Taking advice from his friends as well the adults in his life, Lilo tries out some ways of creating a self-watering system. But every idea fails miserably. Lilo, however, is blessed to have some trustworthy adults around him, and with their ideas, he keeps working towards his goal. Will he succeed in creating a watering system for...

AUTHOR: Branwen OShea GENRE: Fantasy. RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A beautiful environmental fantasy that highlights the importance of natural and cultural heritage. Though a short story, it leaves a long impact. Plot Preview: The planet of Lenglood is inhabited by creatures called Firth ( who, sadly, don’t look like Colin Firth! 😉) The Firth respect the song trees, and sings paeans to them every day. However, when an ecological disaster strikes the planet, almost all the Firth are wiped out. The only one left behind is little Cerulean, who is too young to sing to the trees by himself. As he struggles to adjust to a solitary life, he does his best to follow what his parents had taught him about remembering the ancient ways. However, unknown to him, there’s yet another disaster arriving. And this time, it is in the form of human colonists, who don’t understand the value of nature. What is Cerulean to do? Can he save Lenglood? The story comes to us in the third person perspective o...

AUTHOR: Chas Newkey-Burden GENRE: Biographical Nonfiction. RATING:  4 stars. In a Nutshell: An ode to the greatest planet hero: Sir David Attenborough. Almost like a bullet-list summation of his enthralling life, with plenty of trivia and interview quotes. Not officially endorsed by Sir D.A., but a great read for his fans, nevertheless. I am a huge fan of Sir David Attenborough. ( How can one not be!? ) I have seen almost all of his nature documentaries and have always relished his knowledgeable insights accompanying the visuals on screen. So when I saw the opportunity to read this book, I didn’t check the blurb or the author’s bio or any other detail. I just saw the title and grabbed it for the great man himself. A foolish risk to take, but luckily, it worked. 😄 I have already read Sir D.A.’s ‘Adventures of a Young Naturalist: The Zoo Quest Expeditions’ and have his autobiography, ‘Life on Air: Memoirs of a Broadcaster’ on my TBR. However, as my copy was published in 2010, it mig...

AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR: Octavie Wolters TRANSLATOR: Michele Hutchison GENRE: Children's Picture Book. RATING: 3 stars. In a Nutshell: Decent but not great. Expected more because I love starlings. Story Synopsis: While flying, the starling recognises the beauty of nature and decides to sing a song about the loveliness around him. When he shares this idea with some other friends, they all pop in with advice about what to include in his song. Ultimately, the starling takes note of all their points and composes a song including his thoughts as well as those of his friends. This book was originally written in Dutch in 2021. The English translation is to be released on 12th September 2023. I like the thought behind the book. Starlings love to imitate tunes from around them, and this concept has been expanded into a starling’s taking ideas from his friends while composing an ode to the beauty of nature. However, in terms of implementation, the book left me with mixed feelings. 🐦 W...

AUTHOR: Jane Wilsher ILLUSTRATOR: Martin Stanev GENRE: Children's Nonfiction, Nature. RATING: 5 stars. In a Nutshell: A planet-friendly book in every way possible. Informative, inspiring, and practical. Loved it! If you had asked me for a list of “things to do with a tree”, I would have probably mentioned basic actions like climb it, hug it, sit under it, and watch the animals/birds/nests in the branches. That’s it. I don’t think I could have jotted down even ten items for an arboreal agenda. And here is a book with a whopping twenty-one things that readers can do with/around trees. Here’s where the authors took the simple premise and pushed it up to the highest level of excellence: 🌳 The list of twenty-one items doesn’t comprise merely simple activities like the ones I mentioned earlier. Each item is expanded to include additional information connected to that specific point. For example, “Talk leaves with your tree” has details on the physical structure and the function of lea...

AUTHOR: Lucy Brownridge ILLUSTRATOR: Hannah Abbo GENRE: Children's Nonfiction, Nature. RATING: 4.25 stars In a Nutshell: A nice story highlighting how trees communicate through an underground network. Story Synopsis: In an ancient forest, a little Douglas fir is trying to grow up but her progress is quite slow as she is surrounded by giant trees and gets little water. When the little tree’s sadness leaves through her roots, the underground fungal network that interconnects the roots of all the trees in the forest spread an SOS alert: ‘Little Tree needs help.’ A paper birch who grows next to a stream responds immediately, sending sugars through her roots to the Douglas fir, who benefits from this act of generosity. The little fir wants to repay the paper birch, and soon, she gets a chance to do so. I had been aware of the mycorrhizal network connecting tree roots and fungi in a complex subterranean network of communication, thanks to Peter Wohlleben’s ‘The Hidden Life of Trees’ ...

AUTHOR: Ed Yong GENRE: Animal Nonfiction RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A great option for animal nonfiction lovers. Goes a bit too technical with scientific parlance at times, but most of the content is comprehensible to lay readers. Humans have always tried to understand animals. However, one key thing that we either forget or don’t realise is that we try to use *our* understanding of the world to perceive *their* understanding of the world. Scientists have realised the flaw of this method, and have already begun the change in methodology for animal behaviour analysis, using the concept of Umwelt to understand animal behaviour rather than anthropomorphising them. Umwelt is the German word for ‘environment’, and it denotes an organism’s sensory world. Our sensory world is dictated by our senses—the five that are commonly termed senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch) and the various other senses that we aren’t even aware of possessing (heat, pain, vibrations, balance,…) Howe...

AUTHOR: Jules Howard ILLUSTRATOR: Lucy Letherland GENRE: Children's Nonfiction, Science. RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: An enlightening read for youngsters who are interested in animals and zoology. Most children love animals. However, a few want to take their passion beyond pets, and have a career connected to animals in the wild. How should they begin? What does a zoologist actually do? Where does a zoologist work? You will find answers to all this and more in this educative and entertaining book. The books begins with an introduction of zoology. It then covers various types of biomes such as temperate & tropical forests, the tundra, the grasslands, and even underwater reefs and the deep ocean. For each region, the book explores the kind of region, a few of the animals who dwell therein, some interesting facts related to the animals, and the work zoologists do in that region, and how they go about it. While there are many books that provide amazing facts about wild animals, ...

AUTHOR: Joshua Goodson GENRE: Children's Picture Book, Nonficton, Nature. RATING: 3.5 stars. A simple enough book that explains to children how a tree comes into being. The process is explained in easy words, right from a seed falling off a tree and going all the way till the new tree sends off its own seeds into the world. There are some things that go beyond what was essential, such as the tree being our friend, and the word for a group of trees. But there were also some concepts that I had expected to be a part of the book but weren’t, such as the development of flowers and fruits, and the importance of trees in nature. (It goes so much beyond ‘providing shade for picnics.’) The language is easy and the illustrations bright and sweet, both thus being suitable for pre-K readers. The cover art reminded me of the cover of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, a book that I had loved in my childhood but have strong mixed feelings about now. Thankfully, the content in this book is not ...

AUTHOR: Rina Singh ILLUSTRATOR: Ishita Jain GENRE: Children's Picture Book, Environment. RATING: 4.25 stars. An inspiring true story of a man who created and nurtured a forest all alone, that too on a sandbar! Jadav Payeng was a young tribal boy in 1979 when the river that passed by his island village in North-East India flooded the banks and left many snakes dead, having perished due to lack of shady green cover. Payeng realised that trees could solve the issue but no one was ready to take charge. When the forest department gave him a bag of seedlings saying, ‘Go plant them yourself”, he actually did so. He started planting those seedlings on an abandoned sandbar. After thirty years, the resulting dense forest covers about 1360 acres, an area larger than the Central Park of New York. No one even knew of his efforts until a wildlife photographer stumbled upon his story in 2009. Since then, he has been acclaimed and is now known as the forest man of India. As a children’s picture b...

Author: Dawn Casey Illustrator: Domenique Serfontein Genre: Children's Picture Book, Non-fiction Rating: 4.5 stars. A must-read for every human being, nature lover or not. All of us know the desperate condition the planet is in. Forest fires, severe hurricanes, extreme rains and floods – weather patterns are changing like never before. The future looks scary the way it is right now, assuming there is a long-term future. But to avoid humans from giving up on the planet, there is a need for reports filled with a ray of hope than with overwhelming dread. That’s where such books make a world of difference. The eight stories contained in this book have one specialty. Unlike usual picture books based on nature, the stories aren’t entirely fictional and aren’t taken from folktales or mythical lore. Instead, every single story has a basis in reality – they are all real-life anecdotes written in a narrative format. From the return of grey wolves to the Yellowstone National Park to the resto...

Author: Clive Gifford Illustrator: Gosia Herba Genre: Children's Nonfiction, Nature Rating: 4.5 stars. What a marvellous book this is! We’ve seen so many books praising the skills of animals. But nature isn’t just animals. Finally, here’s a children’s nonfiction that celebrates plants and their ingenious ways of surviving and thriving in nature. The book covers a wide variety of plants of all types and demonstrates one unique ability that they have, which human engineers have replicated or are trying to replicate. These range from common plants such as the peace lily to weeds such as tumbleweeds to carnivorous plants such as the Venus Flytrap to underwater plants such as the kelp to trees such as the willow. The book is 80 pages long, and each of these pages (except for a few) contains details on one specific plant, its features and the ability that we humans could learn. I liked how the content was presented from the first person perspective of the specific plant on that page. Thi...