In the 14-volume Our Living World series, a colorful look at common amphibians worldwide--frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and the legless, wormlike caecilians. The format here is especially appealing and accessible, with glossy color photos on every page (including a striking shot of a bullfrog swallowing a rat), generous margins, boldface headlines introducing topics, boxes of odd facts, and classification charts. Ricciuti describes the anatomy and life cycle of the frog as a representative amphibian, including diagrams of internal organs and development, but doesn't label anatomical diagrams fully or give scientific names for species, which limits the book's reference value. However, he does discuss the importance of amphibians to the balance of nature and concerns about the recent unexplained dramatic reductions in some species. An alluring presentation. Glossary; further reading; index. (Nonfiction. 8-12)
