THE WORLD OF BABY ANIMALS
By
Beyond the glossy full-color photographs of animals and their babies on every page, this debut has little to recommend it. For each chapter (""Care and Feeding,"" ""Communication,"" ""Play,"" ""Getting From Here to There,"" and ""Environment""), Hodgson provides a dense introduction followed by a dozen photos. The text and captions are smarmy and anthropomorphic: ""Photographed in an exquisite moment, a mother deer and her fawn symbolize the ever-renewed tenderness and tenacity that wild creatures devote to rearing their young."" An index makes this volume accessible for research, but it's more pretty than useful.