Fans of all things gross, revolting, and disgusting will find plenty to applaud in this round-up of animal behaviors and habits for survival in the natural world. Eating, egg-laying, sheltering, tricking, and defending are all common comportment in the wide universe of animals, birds, insects, and parasites. A swallowtail butterfly larva mimics the shape of a bird dropping, a braconid wasp feasts on caterpillar guts, a honey ant regurgitates nectar for its colony, a tongue worm sets up house in the mucus of a dog’s nose. Exploding soldier ants, ticks bursting with blood, vomiting vampire bats—the characters described here are not for the faint of heart or feeble of stomach. If there’s a misstep, it’s that the plain presentation—predominant text against a stark white background, interspersed with a few full-color photographs—undersells the high-interest subject matter suggested by such jazzy chapter headings as “Ballooning Birds,” “Gulping Eyeballs,” and “Underwater Bloodsucker.” To aid readers, scientific terms are accentuated in italic typeface, defined in a glossary, and located with use of an index. (Nonfiction. 7-12)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-81739-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
Bishop’s spectacular photographs of the tiny red-eyed tree frog defeat an incidental text from Cowley (Singing Down the Rain, 1997, etc.). The frog, only two inches long, is enormous in this title; it appears along with other nocturnal residents of the rain forests of Central America, including the iguana, ant, katydid, caterpillar, and moth. In a final section, Cowley explains how small the frog is and aspects of its life cycle. The main text, however, is an afterthought to dramatic events in the photos, e.g., “But the red-eyed tree frog has been asleep all day. It wakes up hungry. What will it eat? Here is an iguana. Frogs do not eat iguanas.” Accompanying an astonishing photograph of the tree frog leaping away from a boa snake are three lines (“The snake flicks its tongue. It tastes frog in the air. Look out, frog!”) that neither advance nor complement the action. The layout employs pale and deep green pages and typeface, and large jewel-like photographs in which green and red dominate. The combination of such visually sophisticated pages and simplistic captions make this a top-heavy, unsatisfying title. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-87175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
Miranda’s book counts the monsters gathering at a birthday party, while a simple rhyming text keeps the tally and surveys the action: “Seven starved monsters are licking the dishes./Eight blow out candles and make birthday wishes.” The counting proceeds to ten, then by tens to fifty, then gradually returns to one, which makes the monster’s mother, a purple pin-headed octopus, very happy. The book is surprisingly effective due to Powell’s artwork; the color has texture and density, as if it were poured onto the page, but the real attention-getter is the singularity of every monster attendee. They are highly individual and, therefore, eminently countable. As the numbers start crawling upward, it is both fun and a challenge to try to recognize monsters who have appeared in previous pages, or to attempt to stay focused when counting the swirling or bunched creatures. The story has glints of humor, and in combination with the illustrations is a grand addition to the counting shelf. (Picture book. 3-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201835-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999
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