An engaging resource for young nature enthusiasts.
Konerman’s illustrated children’s book details the ways in which mud can be helpful in the daily lives of animals all over the world.
In these colorful pages, the author discusses the benefits of having plenty of mud around when you’re a member of the animal kingdom. Several types of birds need mud in their everyday lives to help keep their nests sturdy and safe from predators. Macaws eat mud to calm their stomachs and counter poisons—they’re just one of over 200 species that have been documented engaging in geophagia, or eating mud. Turtles all over the globe use mud to protect themselves from inclement weather, whether it’s too hot or too cold. Both elephants and hippos roll in mud to cool themselves off and protect their skin (“A nice layer of mud blocks pests and parasites that itch or make elephants and hippos sick”). The text’s layout pairs prey animals with natural predators that use mud in the same way; readers learn that alligators use mud to protect their eggs, just like the flamingos they hunt. At the back of the book, each of the animals mentioned in the main text receive a dedicated paragraph containing more detailed information. The book also includes a glossary, author’s note, and labeled examples of various species’ footprints. Konerman uses repetitive text to introduce problems that animals encounter for which mud is the solution. (The seminarrative text is lyrical but contains no fictional elements.) On some pages, there are additional, mud splattered text boxes providing more fun facts about the animals (“Duck-billed platypus has a rubbery snout that can sense its prey’s tiny electrical currents in the mud”). Cataldo depicts animals in their environments in realistic illustrations, including details to help readers develop a deeper understanding of the material.
An engaging resource for young nature enthusiasts.Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9781970039092
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Web of Life
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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