How Slippery Is a Banana Peel?

by Rebecca Donnelly, Misa Saburi (Illustrator)

Overview

Rebecca Donnelly's How Slippery Is a Banana Peel? is a picture book companion to Cats Are a Liquid celebrating the science and the slipperiness of banana peels—a perfect introduction to friction, featuring illustrations by Misa Saburi.

Volcanoes roar,
But banana peels race.
Rockets soar,
Like bananas through space.

A group of kid-experimenters at a science fair explore the slipperiness of banana peels—a perfect introduction to scientific concepts! It's funny and STEM-inspired, with back matter on friction and a kitchen science experiment. These playful and mischievous banana peels will capture the imagination of readers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250820204
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	01/19/2021
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	30 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Rebecca Donnelly is the author of many best-loved books for children. Her debut picture book, Cats Are a Liquid, was nominated for the Mewbery Award. Her debut middle-grade novel, How to Stage a Catastrophe, was an Indies Introduce/Kids’ Indie Next pick. Rebecca writes, studies cats, and works as a children's librarian in northern New York.

Misa Saburi was born in Sleepy Hollow, New York, and raised in Tokyo, Japan. She currently lives in Brooklyn where she illustrates children’s books, including Cats Are a Liquid, Bearnard’s Book, and Monster Trucks.

Rebecca Donnelly was born in England and has lived in California, Florida, and New Mexico. She has an MA in Humanities and a Master’s in Library and Information Science. She is the author of many best-loved books for children, including Cats Are a Liquid (nominated for the Mewbery Award), How Slippery Is a Banana Peel?, and Super Spaghetti. Her debut middle-grade novel, How to Stage a Catastrophe, was an Indies Introduce/Kids’ Indie Next pick. Rebecca lives in and writes from northern New York.
Misa Saburi was born in Sleepy Hollow, New York, and raised in Tokyo, Japan. She currently lives in Brooklyn where she illustrates children's books, including Monster Trucks and Bearnard's Book, written by Deborah Underwood.

Editorial Reviews

2020-11-18
In this follow-up to Cats Are a Liquid (2019), Donnelly and Saburi invite budding scientists to ponder further.

It is a trope of physical comedy that banana peels are comically and catastrophically slippery, but how slippery are they, really? Inspired by the real-life experiments of Japanese scientist Kiyoshi Mabuchi, Donnelly compares banana peels to a wide variety of materials that move, slide, and glide. From lava flows and jelly wobbles to their namesake, the banana slug, fluids, friction, and even fashion are explored with smiling, anthropomorphic banana peels and a bevy of diverse young scientists all along the way. Saburi’s round-headed and dot-eyed cartoon children and comical bananas are delightful, and the liquid cats even make an appearance. As with its predecessor, the text can often stray into nonsense (“Is a squid a banana that dives in the deep?”). While the illustrations are adorable and animated, the questions posed and comparisons made in the rhyming text are sometimes only tenuously tied to banana peels. Rather, the banana peel seems to be an arbitrary vehicle to introduce many unrelated experiments, from rocketry to botany. Because of this, though the text is simple and encourages a brisk pace, the spreads are best enjoyed when explored together with an adult who can call attention to these details. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-16-inch double-page spreads viewed at 39.1% of actual size.)

A mixed bag of vibrant artwork, silly rhymes, and a spark of curiosity, best enjoyed in a cozy lap. (author's note, activity) (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews