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A stunning combination of poems and illustrations celebrating some of Earth’s wildest and most beautiful creatures. Meade’s woodcut-print–and-watercolor illustrations fill page after page with striking images of each featured animal in its habitat. Every page spread is saturated with vivid colors and shapes, simultaneously drawing attention to the boldly rendered animal at its heart and making space for a poem, printed in large, clear type, that pays further tribute to the creature pictured. Elliott’s poems, with their spot-on rhythm, playful rhyme and precise use of language, capture something essential about each animal. The jaguar, for example, grows on her back delicate rosettes “and yet / there’s danger in the jaguar’s gait, / a soundless step that warns: / Beware of jungle-raised bouquets. / Beware these hidden thorns.” The poems, though they employ some sophisticated vocabulary, are short and direct, a feature that will demonstrate to verse-averse young readers that poetry can be powerful and pleasurable without being too complicated or threatening. (Picture book/poetry. 4-10)
