Promising in concept, careless in execution.
Younger readers are invited to appreciate the special abilities of a variety of wild animals.
Morgan presents a series of rhetorical questions (“Could you eat your food while your head is upside down?” or “Could you eat 3,000 treats in one single night?” or “Could you drink 20 gallons of water in under 20 minutes?”), then uses the answers as jumping-off points for sharing information about animals including flamingoes, bats, and camels. While much of the information is interesting and age-appropriate, such as how bats use echolocation and ants are able to carry burdens many times their own weight, some facts are poorly chosen or even potentially dangerous. The stones in Roose’s accompanying illustration are unrealistically hefty, but the awkwardly phrased “Could you…gulp down rocks without them being chewed?” (as several crocodilians do) could well prompt reckless readers to try lithophagy. “Penguins are flightless birds,” Morgan observes on another page, “which means they can’t fly.” Elsewhere, rather than offer possible reasons why sloths descend to ground level to defecate, she airily takes them to task for not staying safely up in the trees, and anthropomorphically suggests that mosquitoes “enjoy” the smell of stinky feet. The uneven text is presented alongside illustrations of animals and children with a variety of skin tones sharing outdoorsy scenes.
Promising in concept, careless in execution. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781605379876
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clavis
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another playful imagination-stretcher.
Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.
As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.
Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781339049052
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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