ENCANTADO

Once again recasting a recent book for adults, Montgomery (The Man-Eating Tigers of Sundarbans, 2001, etc.) invites younger readers along on a present-tense, second-person expedition to the Amazon, in search of the (as it turns out) elusive fresh-water dolphin. Along the way, she fills in background by visiting a biologist, a paleontologist, and local residents, climbing a tree for a close-up view of a teeming Amazonian arboreal community, and learning about cooperative local and international efforts to preserve the rain forest. She writes with a contagious sense of wonder—mixed with frustration, for though she does find dolphins, all she’s able to see of them are occasional flashes on the river’s surface. Children will get a better look at this bright pink, lumpy-looking creature, as Taylor-Snow intersperses atmospheric, crisply clear on-site color photos with nose-to-nose shots of Chuckles, a resident of the Pittsburgh Zoo and the only pink dolphin in captivity in North America. Closing with facts, addresses, and an above-average reading list, this will not only leave readers feeling as if they’d been to the Amazon and met one of its odder-looking residents, but well equipped to pursue a newly kindled interest in rainforest conservation too. (index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)