An ideal resource for those wanting to learn more about these intriguing creatures.
Author/photographer Bond offers an introduction to one of North America’s most endangered animals in this book for young readers.
Black-footed ferrets—a different mustelid species than domesticated ferrets—live and breed solely within extensive colonies created by prairie dogs, which are also the ferrets’ main food source: They “eat the entire prairie dog: fur, bones, and all!” After a ferret is “born as tiny as a human’s pinky finger, with their eyes and ears closed,” Bond writes, they leave the den and strike out on their own at five months of age; then they face various predators, such as coyotes and bobcats. Black-footed ferret populations have declined over the years, due to introduced diseases and the loss of natural grasslands; by 1979, they were believed to be extinct. The last known population was discovered in Wyoming in 1981, but disease struck the colony and, five years later, only 10 remained. Since then, a captive-breeding program has reintroduced descendants of those survivors to more than 30 sites throughout the American Great Plains; still, fewer than 400 currently live in the wild. The book includes extensive resources for learning more about “BFFs,” as well as an interview with biologist Dean Biggins, who captured most of the ferrets that formed the captive-breeding program. The majority of the text is simple, and young readers will find it easy to understand; Bond ably conveys even complex information about the ferret conservation program in an uncomplicated way. Her full-color wildlife photography is frankly magnificent, offering readers a terrific sense of what these animals are like in the wild; a series showing ferrets leaping and pouncing as they “take turns charging toward one another in a pretend attack” is especially dynamic. Taken as a whole, the book has everything young readers could want in an introductory wildlife book.
An ideal resource for those wanting to learn more about these intriguing creatures.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9781943013395
Page Count: 64
Publisher: True North Editions
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again.
Cece loves asking “why” and “what if.”
Her parents encourage her, as does her science teacher, Ms. Curie (a wink to adult readers). When Cece and her best friend, Isaac, pair up for a science project, they choose zoology, brainstorming questions they might research. They decide to investigate whether dogs eat vegetables, using Cece’s schnauzer, Einstein, and the next day they head to Cece’s lab (inside her treehouse). Wearing white lab coats, the two observe their subject and then offer him different kinds of vegetables, alone and with toppings. Cece is discouraged when Einstein won’t eat them. She complains to her parents, “Maybe I’m not a real scientist after all….Our project was boring.” Just then, Einstein sniffs Cece’s dessert, leading her to try a new way to get Einstein to eat vegetables. Cece learns that “real scientists have fun finding answers too.” Harrison’s clean, bright illustrations add expression and personality to the story. Science report inserts are reminiscent of The Magic Schoolbus books, with less detail. Biracial Cece is a brown, freckled girl with curly hair; her father is white, and her mother has brown skin and long, black hair; Isaac and Ms. Curie both have pale skin and dark hair. While the book doesn’t pack a particularly strong emotional or educational punch, this endearing protagonist earns a place on the children’s STEM shelf.
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again. (glossary) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-249960-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
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