THE ANIMALS WATCHED

A structured text and animal pairs introduced in alphabetical order are the devices used in this retelling of the Noah’s Ark story. In turn, each pair of animals comments on the next event in the story, from the aardvarks foretelling the flood to the zebras stepping onto the new land with Noah and his family. The text uses the same sentence structure for each animal comment, with the name of the particular animal highlighted in bold type. Some of the animals are not familiar ones (such as kiwis or tapirs), but a final page shows miniature portraits of all the animals mentioned, along with phonetic pronunciations and short descriptions. Litzinger’s mixed-media illustrations use bold shapes, soft colors and a folk-art style to add a unique flair to the popular Bible story. She uses an exaggerated perspective that sometimes makes smaller animals seem as big as the larger ones, but this adds to the naïve appeal. Both text and illustrations include Noah’s wife and his sons and their wives as important working members of the expedition. (Picture book/religion. 4-8)