Review: A Black Hole Is Not a Hole

A Black Hole Is Not a Hole by Carolyn Cinami Decristofano

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



So there's a clear trend in some of these complex topics toward the illustrated book, rather than the picturebook format. This is the former. Copious illustrations are fully complementary or corresponding to the text, with each picture intended to be an example of something discussed in the text. This is an interesting convention, because in 21st century literacy, we should be expecting to see the arrow turn the other way --shifting to the visual being the primary 'text' to read. It's more likely to see this in picturebooks--I'm thinking of Molly Bang's plankton book.

This book drew Pearl right in because of the title--it's very clever. She browsed in the book for a little bit and then we had some conversations. This was fun to see, because it confirmed what Kim Bontempo was teaching us about digital reading--that it encourages browsing behavior, moving around a text, not a linear read from start to end. I suspect that magazine reading style (in particular I think of National Geographic browsing), has a lot to do with the emerging formats of informational text. This book supports browsing but is still organized as a linear presentation.



View all my reviews