Doesn’t get out of the starting gate.
A gallery of nature’s fastest, slowest, biggest, strongest, ugliest, most beautiful, most dangerous, longest-lived, and farthest-traveling animal record holders.
The book is inconsistent from the start. The six contestants for “Fastest Animal” are all large ones, from cheetah to Usain Bolt, but “Strongest” pits several insects against the elephant and gorilla. The competition format also becomes muddled. The Masai giraffe (tallest), anteater (longest tongue), and blue wildebeest (“largest herds,” debatably) all share space with a blue whale, among other animals in the seemingly arbitrarily chosen “Largest” category. Even a pretense of comparing measurable dimensions or achievements is eventually abandoned for an array of baby animals. The writing, in the uncredited translation from Czech, measures up to Pernický’s flat, ordinary animal images. It informs readers that pronghorns are “aptly named” because their “horns are shaped like prongs,” that the “job” of a domestic duck is “to provide feathers and eggs,” that two lions that preyed on Kenyan railway passengers were “cannibalistic,” and that as the snail is a hermaphrodite “it’s hard to tell if it’s a boy or a girl.” (Spoiler alert: The answer is “Yes.”) For similar competitions carried off more accurately and entertainingly, start with Carron Brown’s Animal Olympics, illustrated by Katy Tanis (2020), and Martin Jenkins’ Animal Awards, illustrated by Tor Freeman (2019).
Doesn’t get out of the starting gate. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: May 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-80-00-05931-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Albatros Media
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
An affectionate picture of bears and bear scientists, capped with a page of moon bear facts and an afterword.
Not one but three roly-poly moon bear cubs star in this true animal rescue tale.
Orphaned by poachers, Yasha, joined later by Shum and Shiksha, are nurtured by Pokrovskaya and another scientist for nearly two years on a game preserve until they were ready to be released into the Siberian wild. Taking a slightly anthropomorphized bear’s-eye point of view (“Yasha was happy with his new home”), Kvatum chronicles the cubs’ development as they learn to forage on their own while playing together and learning to climb trees. She also notes how important it is for human observers to remain aloof—minimizing physical contact and even wearing scent-concealing clothing—to prevent the animals from becoming dependent or domesticated. Looking positively fetching in the big, color photos, shaggy Yasha and his ursine cohorts grow visibly as they ramble through woodsy settings, splash in a river and survive an encounter with a prowling tiger before being deemed ready to live on their own.
An affectionate picture of bears and bear scientists, capped with a page of moon bear facts and an afterword. (map, bibliography) (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: July 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4263-1051-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2012
“Humans are lucky to have rodents,” Munro argues…and makes her case with equal warmth to hearts and minds.
Twenty-one representatives of the largest mammalian order pose in this fetching portrait gallery.
Each one depicted, all or in part, at actual size, the rodentine array begins with a pocket-watch–size African pygmy jerboa and concludes with the largest member of the clan, the “sweet-looking capybara.” In between, specimens climb the scale past chipmunks and northern flying squirrels to a Norway rat, porcupine, and groundhog. Despite a few outliers such as the naked mole rat and a rather aggressive-looking beaver, Munro’s animals—particularly her impossibly cute guinea pig—strongly exude shaggy, button-eyed appeal. Her subjects may come across as eye candy, but they are drawn with naturalistic exactitude, and in her accompanying descriptive comments, she often relates certain visible features to distinctive habitats and behaviors. She also has a terrific feel for the memorable fact: naked mole rats run as quickly backward in their tunnels as forward; African giant pouched rats have been trained to sniff out mines; the house mouse “is a romantic. A male mouse will sing squeaky love songs to his girlfriend” (that are, fortunately or otherwise, too high for humans to hear). Closing summaries will serve budding naturalists in need of further specifics about sizes, diets, geographical ranges, and the like.
“Humans are lucky to have rodents,” Munro argues…and makes her case with equal warmth to hearts and minds. (websites, index) (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3860-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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