A straightforward introduction to an appealing topic for upper-elementary and middle school readers.
Sick, injured, and orphaned wildlife who share our city lives are rescued and rehabilitated in specialized treatment centers.
Squirrels and foxes, raptors and loons, goslings and skunks, rabbits and raccoons—all kinds of animals survive and even thrive along with humans (and their machines and pets) in a busy urban area. But sometimes these wild creatures need some human assistance. Opening with a clear explanation of urban animal needs and why a rehab center is important, the author, communications coordinator at the Toronto Wildlife Centre, goes on to give specific examples of animal rescue, care, and release done by staff and volunteers there. Plentiful, well-chosen photographs add to the appeal. Chapter titles are set on spreads with striking images: an opossum among flowers, a trapped swan being rescued from the ice. A panel shows happy survivors trotting off after recovery and release. Throughout, pulled-out paragraphs and substantial text boxes add interesting facts, offer further examples, and contradict some popular assumptions. Why humans should help wild animals is given as much attention as how. The author’s suggestions for readers’ involvement include reminders about appropriate trash disposal as well as names of organizations, and a concluding chapter describes three similar rehab centers around the world.
A straightforward introduction to an appealing topic for upper-elementary and middle school readers. (photo credits, resources, index) (Nonfiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-77085-572-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
An exceptionally crafted visual biography of a pioneering entomologist and naturalist who lived a life devoted to discovery.
The remarkable contributions of Maria Sibylla Merian, a 17th-century self-taught artist and the first person to document the metamorphosis of the butterfly, are not as well-known as those of John James Audubon, Charles Darwin, and Carl Linnaeus, but her discoveries preceded and influenced those later naturalists.
At a time when the most learned adhered to the Aristotelian theory of “spontaneous generation,” that insects came from “dew, dung, dead animals, or mud” and were “beasts of the Devil,” Merian was convinced otherwise. Captivated by the mysterious lives of insects, she wanted to know where they came from. Flouting the conventions of the time to pursue her passion for insects made Merian’s life difficult, but she never allowed adversity to interfere with her dogged pursuit of knowledge. Travelers’ stories inspired her to take an arduous journey to the Dutch colony of Surinam to observe, document, and collect exotic species. With techniques learned from her stepfather, Merian became an accomplished artist, rendering in beautiful, extraordinary detail the intricacies of caterpillars, flies, moths, butterflies, and other insects. She recorded her keen observations in a research journal and published three books about her discoveries. This fascinating account of Merian’s life and work is beautifully designed and embellished with both Sidman’s photographs of what Merian studied and images of her artwork. Informative captions identify and connect each image’s relevance to Merian’s life and work.
An exceptionally crafted visual biography of a pioneering entomologist and naturalist who lived a life devoted to discovery. (glossary, timeline, source notes, bibliography, further reading) (Biography. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-544-71713-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
Best adapted for browsing but with some nutritious bits for students of paleontology or animal evolution in general.
A portrait gallery of extinct creatures, “scary, attractive, or a little bit bizarre to our eyes,” posed with modern relatives.
García Mora goes for outsized examples, from the titular T. Rex—looking positively dapper in a coat of neatly combed feathers as it towers over a pair of oblivious pullets—and the ancestral dragonfly Meganeura, “large as a seagull,” to giant sloths and armadillos. Rendered in muted, greenish-gold tones, the figures look properly massive but are actually rather small on the page, as plenty of space has been left for early cousin creatures, for scale-capturing views of modern descendants and silhouettes of human children, for close-ups of teeth, feet, or other physical features to show changes over time, and for quick but carefully accurate descriptive notes in tiny type. The gallery isn’t arranged in any particular order, coming to an abrupt end with group portraits of early sharks and other fish, but beyond the eye candy, it does offer examples of both adaptive radiation (species diverging into other species) and evolutionary convergence (different species acquiring similar characteristics) to enrich the basic notion of evolution as an ongoing process. There is no backmatter, making this a bit problematic as a nonfiction resource.
Best adapted for browsing but with some nutritious bits for students of paleontology or animal evolution in general. (Informational picture book. 10-13)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-88-544-1197-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: White Star
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
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