JUNGLES

Excessively enlarged, overdramatic color photos and a rather lurid text will attract readers to this oversize book, but the whole is unsatisfying even as an introduction to jungle layers, wildlife, people, and the implications of deforestation. The photos may appear to be almost three-dimensional, but they are poorly placed. Some are lost in the gutter: in one double spread, the head of a scarlet macaw appears to be growing out of the wing of a fruit bat. Scientific names and size information are not given (is the tailless whip scorpion really huge, or just extremely enlarged in the photo?), and often intriguing facts (flying snakes, fuzzy- tongued parakeets) are undocumented. Marginal. Index. (Nonfiction. 10-12)