Adds both perspective and a positive spin on a universal experience.
Translated from Spanish, a lighthearted celebration of the miracle of birth, from being spit out by a daddy Darwin’s frog to a baby giraffe’s six-foot drop to the ground.
With the avowed intention of showing “how wondrous and diverse—and cute!—the natural world is,” the author recaps common natal experiences for 25 animals, accompanied by Galí’s fluidly drawn cartoon portraits, mostly of smiling parents and offspring together. The breezy tone is decidedly infectious. Jara describes a mating dance between scorpions that eventually results in “scorplings,” commends the young of the paradoxically named seven-arm octopus, who are immediately ready to float off and “make their mother proud,” and coos that opossums give birth to “around 20 teeny joeys” at a time. Some newlings are born nearly helpless, while others are fully ready to strike out on their own. Amazingly, the armadillo can put active pregnancies on hold, while the alpine salamander’s gestation varies, depending on the altitude at which it lives (two years for those living at 3,200 feet and three years for those that reside even higher). These and other airy facts set a mellow mood for the final animal babies, which are the human ones—“the only living creatures that smile intentionally at their parents,” the author writes fetchingly. The sleeping infant has light pink skin.
Adds both perspective and a positive spin on a universal experience. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: March 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781459840348
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Another playful imagination-stretcher.
Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.
As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.
Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781339049052
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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