Something to crow about.
Having explored poop and parasites, survival techniques and size, Davies and Layton turn to animal communication, describing how animals send and receive messages by sound, sight, smell and touch, for a variety of purposes.
A "hand"-standing panda on the title page sets the cheerful tone of this informal introduction. The author has chosen both familiar and unusual examples, often connecting the animal behavior to children's experiences in ways that almost cross the line into anthropomorphization. Fish coloration is likened to school uniforms; the superb lyrebird performs his mating song and dance on a "stage" of his own making; great bustards "look like large white balloons" as they announce "I am gorgeous." That panda-gymnast is trying to "send an extra signal—'The panda who left this message is very BIG indeed.' " Cartoonlike illustrations, almost doodles, done in ink and colored digitally, add humor to every page, even in the backmatter. They often include speech balloons demonstrating the animals' messages. (The endpapers feature animal sounds in the front, "translated" in the back.) Like other books in this series (most recently, Just the Right Size, 2009), the compact trim size, mostly one-topic-per-spread organization and tongue-in-cheek illustrations will appeal to child readers.
Something to crow about. (index, glossary) (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5088-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2011
Here is an adventure in a unique setting. The lively text and lovely watercolors document three and a half months of a summer the artist and author spent at the South Pole, as part of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists & Writers Program. Hooper describes everyday life aboard the research ship Laurence M. Gould, a sturdy orange icebreaker that scientists use to travel between the islands to study the wide variety of animals who come each year to breed and raise their young. An assortment of penguins, elephant seals, giant petrels, huge skuas, and leopard seals hold center stage. Scientists are less important than the serious business of successfully raising young in the short summer season. The author captures the drama of the ice-cold ocean, alive with life: “Swarms of barrel-shaped blue-tinged salps, stuck together in floating chains. Minute creatures with red eyes. Sliding through the water in a curving path like a ribbon.” The artist provides striking paintings of the landscape and the animals in soft washy colors, and quick pencil sketches. The ice is lemon gold with mauve shadows, and the sea a silver gray in the 24-hour day. Animals are expressive and individual. The krill, the tiny shrimp-like creatures that form the backbone of the ocean food chain, appear in luminous glory. The author concludes with a page on global warming, a map of the islands visited, and an index. From cover to cover a personal and informative journey. (Nonfiction. 7-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7922-7188-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
The author of When Bugs Were Big, Plants Were Strange, and Tetrapods Stalked the Earth (2003) continues her droll but dependable tour of deep prehistory, focusing here on the flora, fauna and fungi of the Silurian and Devonian Periods, approximately 360 to 44 million years ago. This was the time when larger forms of life began to emerge on land, while, among the far richer variety of marine animals, fish wriggled to the top, thanks to newly developed jaws which allowed them “to say good-bye to a monotonous diet of teensy stuff. Now fish could grab, slice and dice to their heart’s content.” By the end, soil, forests and, of course, feet had also appeared. Fearlessly folding in tongue-challenging names and mixing simply drawn reconstructions and maps with goofy flights of fancy—on the first spread Robin Mite and Friar Millipede are caught on a stroll through Sherwood Moss Patch, and on the last, genial nautiloid Amphicyrtoceras plugs the previous volume—Bonner serves up a second heaping course of science that will both stick to the ribs and tickle them. (index, resource lists, time line) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4263-0078-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
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