HOW ANIMAL BABIES STAY SAFE

This addition to the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series offers a broad look at the way young animals are protected by their parents and by their own instincts. Fraser (One Giant Leap, 1999, etc.) organizes her text by types of care, safe homes, moving young from place to place, alerting to danger, fighting for defense, and clustering in large groups for protection, with the beginning and ending of the work focusing on the care of human babies and children. She includes many types of animals, from the tiny (snails) to the huge (elephants) and the charming (cats and kittens) to the not-so-charming (a head-on view of an alligator with her babies in her open mouth). Fraser’s illustrations in soft shades are rather sweet and old-fashioned, but many of her creatures are appealing, such as a mother monkey swinging through the jungle with her baby on her back or two baby raccoons peeking out of their tree-house home while their mother lures a bobcat away from her young. A large type-size and plenty of white space make this accessible to young readers who are reading at the fluency level. No new ground is broken here, but baby animals do have an eternal appeal to the young of the species that can read. (author’s note) (Nonfiction. 5-7)