ANIMALS!

Rotner adds to her striking collection of children’s books featuring her photography with this beginning look at animals’ life cycles.

Mindful of the youngest children, the author keeps things simple by placing each animal on a single spread, one phrase describing the life stages (with appropriate vocabulary: hatchling, lamb, piglet) as they unfold in the three to six photographs that span the pages, and what photos they are! “Egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly” includes six photos, one each of the first three, and then three showing the monarch butterfly inside the now-clear chrysalis, unfolding its wings, and perched on a pink flower. The gangly foal progresses from wobbly infancy to a sturdy colt to a full-grown stallion, its tail and mane grown in and its coat glossy. Of the 14 animals presented, seven begin as eggs (frog, bird, chicken, turtle, snake, lizard), six are common on farms or as pets (rabbit, pig, sheep, horse, cat, dog), and the last is, appropriately, a human. While the robin hatchling is shown in its rather ugly, featherless stage, the chick is not, and of the kit, kitten, and puppy, only the final is shown as a newborn with eyes still shut tight. The backmatter includes three life-cycle diagrams (butterfly, bird, frog), a brief glossary, and a list of “breeds” shown in the photos (several are members of individual species rather than breeds, a distinction that is not clarified by the short, accompanying definition). The few humans pictured are diverse in gender and racial presentation.

Another winner for young animal lovers.