by Jeff Campbell ; illustrated by Ramsey Beyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 7, 2014
Overflowing with information, fascinating tales and thought-provoking information; give it to animal-loving middle graders...
With an eye toward documenting remarkable animal/human interactions, Campbell has assembled a large collection of fascinating anecdotes.
Following a somewhat scholarly foreword by animal researcher Marc Bekoff and a long introduction, the tales are divided into four sections: “Domestic Companions,” mostly chronicling lifesaving actions by pets; “Trained to Serve, Inspired to Heal,” about search dogs and various other kinds of animals trained to perform particular functions; “Wild Saviors,” profiling unusual interactions between wild animals and humans; and “Legends and Folktales,” some describing the traditional folk basis for animal stories as well as others that “mix real life with exaggeration.” Each story is a page or two long, accompanied by an attractive black-and-white illustration by Beyer. Each animal is introduced with a text box that provides brief information about the nature of the event, including—an odd and silly touch—a “Fame Meter” that rates the animal from “Local Hero” (like Dory, a rabbit that saved its owner from a diabetic coma) up to “International Celebrity” (like Mkombozi, a dog that rescued a baby abandoned near Nairobi). One of the book’s strengths is the way events are evaluated in comparison to typical behavior or within the context of the emerging field of the study of animal minds.
Overflowing with information, fascinating tales and thought-provoking information; give it to animal-loving middle graders on up. (sources, further reading, index) (Nonfiction. 11 & up)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-936976-62-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Zest Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
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BOOK REVIEW
by Ann Downer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2015
Science facts more surprising than science fiction for teen readers.
The lack of a spine, or even a brain, doesn’t keep invertebrates from learning, remembering, and solving problems.
Defining intelligence as “the ability to benefit and learn from experience and to apply that information to new situations,” the author of Elephant Talk (2011) provides fascinating examples of mindfulness, memory, and learning in a wide variety of invertebrates from earthworms to dragonflies and spider wasps. She includes chapters on jumping spiders, octopuses, honey bees and paper wasps, Argentine ants, mantis shrimps, box jellyfish and slime molds. Text boxes set off on yellow backgrounds offer fast facts about each species described and clear explanations of complicated concepts. Readers accustomed to the smooth storyline of narrative nonfiction may find Downer’s exposition demanding, but this fact-filled text has intriguing examples and surprising, memorable details. Picture Darwin’s family gathered together to play music to earthworms; slime molds mapping the best routes between U.S. urban areas; using the sound of a file on a wooden stake to attract fish bait (a method called “worm grunting”); experimenters playing tug of war with octopuses unwilling to give up their LEGO blocks. Ample backmatter supports the information, making this an ideal starting place for research on any one of these species.
Science facts more surprising than science fiction for teen readers. (endnotes, glossary, bibliography, further reading) (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4677-3739-5
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Lerner
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
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by Ann Downer
BOOK REVIEW
by Ann Downer
BOOK REVIEW
by Ann Downer ; illustrated by Shennen Bersani
by Robert Weintraub ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 3, 2016
A riveting and highly moving dog story that’s marred by clumsy design.
Judy, an English pointer caught up in World War II, formed a solid bond with a young British airman, Frank Williams, and exhibited remarkable heroism.
Judy was hated by the Japanese who ran the prison camp where she and Frank were held for over three years, so he taught her how to keep out of their sight. Yet time after time, she risked her life to protect the prisoners and is credited with saving many lives. During one harrowing episode, the ship the Japanese were using to transport the prisoners was torpedoed. Frank pushed her out a porthole and was later able to save himself. In the water, Judy dragged one drowning man after another to safety. This adaptation of the original book for adults, also titled No Better Friend (2015), includes numerous lengthy sidebars, written for the young readers’ edition, that are interesting and informative but unnecessarily interrupt the flow of the narrative with an annoying frequency. More useful are the many period photographs included. The brutality—near-starvation diet, rampant disease, frequent beatings, etc.—that characterized the prisoner-of-war camps in the Pacific theater is not minimized, but the focus of the story is more on the traits that made Judy such an extraordinary and meritorious canine and the attachment that she shared with Frank.
A riveting and highly moving dog story that’s marred by clumsy design. (Nonfiction. 11-18)Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-34467-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
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