SOME SNAKES SPIT POISON

The dramatic full-color cover illustration of a spitting cobra and hissing rattlesnake will attract browsers to this title, but the information they encounter within may make them feel hoodwinked. Every spread starts with a statement that is partially answered in the text, e.g., ``I didn't know that snakes lay eggs,'' or have fangs, or can fly. The construction of the statements often results in imprecisions that Llewellyn (My First Book of Time, 1992, etc.) attempts to clean up in subsequent sentences—``although most snakes lay eggs, some, such as vipers, are born live.'' What most readers will remember, however, are the opening statements, and not the elaborations, e.g., that some snakes fly and not that there is a particular snake that glides. The layout is dramatic, often with white text on black backgrounds, but cluttered: full-color close-ups of snake parts, a border of cartoon animals, boxes of things to do, puzzles, and true or false questions. (glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 7-10)