CHEETAH

This excellent introduction to the cheetah touches upon all the salient aspects of the cat’s life: its habitat, hunting tactics (including the enormous bursts of speed), family life, prey and nemeses, and, of course, its remarkable grace and beauty. The approach Morrison (The Neptune Fountain, 1997, etc.) takes is both simple and fluent—there is much information here and it isn’t hard to digest—and the accompanying acrylic illustrations elegantly depict the African savannah. A note of drama comes in a profile of a mother and two cubs on a typical day; the mother has been unsuccessful on her last seven hunts and hunger is gnawing at her cubs. In a closing note, Morrison mentions that valuable cheetah habitat is being usurped by humans (without noting the cheetah’s critically diminished gene pool, also probably due to human intervention) and the subsequent need for its protection. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-9)