SNAKE SECRETS

At first the book's large size (8¬ x 10¬) and high proportion of picture space might be eye-catching, and both the emphasis of the fact-scattering text and the subjects of many of the pictures (a two-headed snake, a constrictor at work on a mouse victim) indicate that it's aimed at landing kids' attention rather than informing students. However, the full-page pictures don't merit the large scale; they turn out to be even less interesting than the utilitarian smaller drawings which illustrate specific points. The second half is a more practical guide to catching, keeping, and dissecting snakes, with diagrams of all the body systems plus a classified ""checklist"" of several species, an annotated ""information guide"" to a few, and, for whatever it's worth, a state-by-state endangered list. For an illustrated field guide, however, readers must look elsewhere. This second part could appeal to potential snake hunters, but its sketchiness makes the projects seem easier than they are: don't kill birds for snake food, Roever advises blithely; instead get dead ones from the roadside. And his environmental and safety cautions are so weak they almost ask to be brushed aside.