This Book Bubbles Over: From the Ocean to Mars and Everywhere In Between

K-Gr 4–Bubble gum, whipped cream, bubble wrap, and soap bubbles are just the introduction to bigger ideas about bubbles as they show up in volcanoes, star-nosed moles, cooking spaghetti, baking bread, neoprene wetsuits, and many other spots. This book truly bubbles over with words, ideas, concepts, and information. Nickum’s text functions on two different visual levels. The top of each page features a few words in larger font that introduce a thing bubbles can do, e.g., “bubbles can be useful/ or a way to play.” Meganck’s digital illustrations, created with the appearance of pencil and pastel, are designed to appeal to younger readers who might otherwise struggle to comprehend or sit through the reading of the dense paragraphs of tiny font at the bottom of each page. A bit of a mismatch occurs where the text describes the how-to and sometimes more scientific understanding of what bubbles are doing in any given scenario, while the accompanying illustration leaves those details to the imagination and creates a character-based scene. Older readers may be put off by the somewhat childish aesthetic, and many younger readers may be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of text.