THE NOCTURNALS EXPLORE UNIQUE ADAPTATIONS OF NIGHTTIME ANIMALS

A fictive squad of nighttime animals shines lights on some of their real cousins.

An ensemble developed by Hecht for a series of novels and easy readers intrudes into the photos as naïvely painted figures and pops up between chapters to comment, but Berne does the informational heavy lifting. Here she profiles a select band of nocturnal creatures, from greater horseshoe bats and red foxes to bandicoots and mangrove pit vipers. Many of the animals are native to Australia or subtropical Asia and may be less familiar or even new to young readers in more northerly climes—the powerful owl, for instance, or the small, fungi-eating marsupial woylie—and the photos (by various contributors credited in the backmatter) likewise offer rare views of seven species of pangolins, five kinds of jerboas, and, following a chapter on the sugar glider, glimpses of other gliders, including the parachute frog and the paradise tree snake. Though the language is informal and every short chapter includes mention, usually with photos, of animal babies (aww), the co-author does introduce chewy vocabulary (crepuscular, cathemeral), explains the mechanisms of echolocation and how foxes use Earth’s magnetic field to zero in on prey, and tucks further detail into a listing of further information on each animal, such as diet and habitat. She even adds savvy general research guidelines to the expansive backmatter.

Broader in scope than the title suggests and likely to keep young naturalists reading well past sunset.