A FIRST LOOK AT FROGS, TOADS AND SALAMANDERS

One common fault that Selsam and Hunt's First Looks certainly avoid is oversimplification. Though they show here how to tell different frogs apart by the patterns of their skin, ""there are other things to look for too,"" and the most confusing cases are the ones hauled in as examples. The differences between frogs and toads, lizards and salamanders, and various kinds of each are examined just as scrupulously. All the different criteria could make for a dry and possibly overloaded lesson in the absence of live samples on which to apply them--and, at the start, the authors violate the first principle of the programmed texts they seem to ape by leading readers straight into a wrong answer. (""An amphibian is an animal that lives both on land and in the water. This animal (an otter) lives on land and in the water. It is an amphibian? No. . . ."") But perhaps just the awareness that ""you have to notice many things"" is an outcome worth the effort.