WHY DO SNAKES HISS?

Younger readers with an affinity for all creatures green and scaly will linger over both the sharply detailed photos and the easy but specific text in this three-part Q&A. Holub poses and answers about a half-dozen similar questions for each type of reptile—how many kinds are there? What are the biggest and smallest ones? How well can they see, hear, and smell?—then closes with some basic provisos for prospective pet owners. With DiVito’s small watercolors filling in some gaps, the illustrations include well-lit shots of animals eating, posing, and enduring handling by confident-looking children, both in natural settings and with backgrounds removed. Some recommendations for further reading or Web viewing wouldn’t have been amiss, but the steady course steered here between the empty hype and numbing barrages of undigested fact offered by similar titles earns it above average marks. (Easy reader/nonfiction. 6-8)