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BABY ANIMALS

Name: BABY ANIMALS
Author: Scott Barker
ISBN: 978-1-338-64570-5

SCHOLASTIC EARLY LEARNERS

From the Touch and Explore series

illustrated by Scott Barker ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 7, 2020

A simple and satisfying sensory experience.

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This baby-animal primer features embedded touch-and-feel textural elements.

Each page features one cartoon creature on a brightly colored background with the diminutive name of the critter captioned below. One small portion of the animal has one or two fabric elements securely inserted into the thick board pages. There’s a gray “kitten” with a slender, soft tail, a “guinea-pig pup” with a felted body, a “lion cub” with a leathery nose, and a “penguin chick” with a sparkly, gently scratchy belly. Some of the touch-and-feel surfaces are on the scanty side, like the mane on the “donkey foal,” but there is a nice diversity of sensations. The animals are endearing, with oversized googly eyes and larger-than-normal heads in bright colors. On the cover is a puppy fully constructed in fabric, but it doesn’t appear within. Most compositions feature suitable contrast, but the ocher guinea pig against a pink background and gray donkey foal against a green background may be a little difficult for developing eyes to pick out. Babies will enjoy playing with (and chewing on) the red tag that protrudes from the front cover.

A simple and satisfying sensory experience. (Board book. 6 mos.-2)

Pub Date: April 7, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-338-64570-5

Page Count: 14

Publisher: Cartwheel/Scholastic

Review Posted Online: April 7, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS

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WHAT IF YOU HAD AN ANIMAL HOME!?

From the What if You Had . . .? series

by Sandra Markle ; illustrated by Howard McWilliam ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 7, 2024

Another playful imagination-stretcher.

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Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.

As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.

Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: May 7, 2024

ISBN: 9781339049052

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS

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THE GREAT NARWHAL RESCUE
by Sandra Markle

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by Sandra Markle

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COULD YOU EVER DINE WITH DINOSAURS!?
by Sandra Markle ; illustrated by Vanessa Morales

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ANIMAL ARCHITECTS

From the Amazing Animals series

by Amy Cherrix ; illustrated by Chris Sasaki ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 2021

An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort.

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A look at the unique ways that 11 globe-spanning animal species construct their homes.

Each creature garners two double-page spreads, which Cherrix enlivens with compelling and at-times jaw-dropping facts. The trapdoor spider constructs a hidden burrow door from spider silk. Sticky threads, fanning from the entrance, vibrate “like a silent doorbell” when walked upon by unwitting insect prey. Prairie dogs expertly dig communal burrows with designated chambers for “sleeping, eating, and pooping.” The largest recorded “town” occupied “25,000 miles and housed as many as 400 million prairie dogs!” Female ants are “industrious insects” who can remove more than a ton of dirt from their colony in a year. Cathedral termites use dirt and saliva to construct solar-cooled towers 30 feet high. Sasaki’s lively pictures borrow stylistically from the animal compendiums of mid-20th-century children’s lit; endpapers and display type elegantly suggest the blues of cyanotypes and architectural blueprints. Jarringly, the lead spread cheerfully extols the prowess of the corals of the Great Barrier Reef, “the world’s largest living structure,” while ignoring its accelerating, human-abetted destruction. Calamitously, the honeybee hive is incorrectly depicted as a paper-wasps’ nest, and the text falsely states that chewed beeswax “hardens into glue to shape the hive.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)

An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort. (selected sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)