WILL YOU MISS US IF WE GO?

Fourteen endangered or threatened animals highlight their plights in perky rhyme.

"With a ruddy red appearance, I’m very cute. / I grow big and strong eating insects and fruit.” Frequently privileging metrics over precise language or even meaning, Jaeger adds to the gallery begun in Who Will Roar If I Go? (2018) with lyrics from the orangutan (depicted by Quirk with pale orange hair and a woefully shriveled-looking arm) as well as the addax, the Eurasian lynx, the tapir, the pygmy hippo, and like rarities. Along with a blithe assurance that the ivory-billed woodpecker is extant (which is still subject to debate), the author makes some head-scratching observations. The red panda informs readers, “My feet can swivel all the way around / Which allows me to walk upside down!” and the orang states, “Our forest homes disappear each year / Due to some palm-growing racketeer.” A closing section offers prose “Factoids” cast as riddles—with answers directly attached. The illustrations make a stronger case for concern, with creatures who, though looking diaphanous and placed in even more airy natural settings, gaze up at viewers with knowing or quizzical expressions as if actually asking the cogent titular question.

Too many incongruities and unpacked issues to stay on track, if well meant.