A glossy, attractive title in the ``Sierra Club Wildlife Series,'' focusing on sea lions; true, eared, and fur seals; and walruses. Anatomy, diet, life cycle, location, and endangered status are presented, along with dozens of charming color photos. Odd facts abound: the undercoat of a fur seal contains hairs so fine that 300,000 crowd each square inch; the lenses inside a seal's eyes are spherical, so they can focus a wide range of underwater light rays. Helpful drawings and charts include a double-spread world map, with the locations of common species and full-page drawings that explore questions like: ``How does a seal stay warm?''; ``What do seals eat?''; ``Who are the seals' ancestors?'' While the text is overlong for younger readers, the many inviting photos and extensive index make this accessible to both browsers and students doing assignments. (Nonfiction. 10+)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-316-32279-2
Page Count: 64
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1991
From the demon cat said to stalk the U.S. Capitol building's ``confusing tangle of...winding passageways'' to the swarming ``rats of the Rhine,'' who take terrible vengeance on a man who ordered a peasant massacre, Cohen presents an array of animals who die but refuse to rest, or appear from nowhere only to vanish mysteriously. As always, his reports are drawn from folklore (``King of the Cats''), accounts of psychic investigators, newspaper articles (the Nottingham lion, the recent Chicago kangaroo), or regional ghost story compilations; he relates them calmly, and in an evenhanded manner. Cohen doesn't include source notes; nor does he claim that everything here can be substantiated—but if readers ``happen to believe the story while...reading it, so much the better.'' (Nonfiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: June 18, 1991
ISBN: 0-399-22230-8
Page Count: 111
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Tod and Billy are captured by aliens, but brattiness saves the day. The boys are hurrying home, late for lunch, when ZAP!— WHOOSH!—they're beamed aboard an alien spaceship. Captain Zerkfield Thorst is willing to return them to earth, but only after a spaceflight of 30 years. How to escape? Easy: be such pains that the captain can't take it—e.g., teach the 300-pound purple aliens to play touch football. It works, and home they go- -late for lunch, yes, but not 30 years late. This cheerful updating of O. Henry's ``The Ransom of Red Chief,'' with a couple of wise cracking kids who never lose their cool, is spoof, romp, and tall tale, all in one. (Fiction. 10+)
Pub Date: April 15, 1991
ISBN: 0-06-021605-0
Page Count: 54
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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