WHEN HUNGER CALLS
by Bert Kitchen & illustrated by Bert Kitchen
In his third book on animal behavior, author/illustrator Kitchen (Somewhere Today, 1992, etc.) highlights the eating habits of 12 animal predators. Children will learn how the killer whale may leave the sea to hunt, how the great, black-backed gull hunts on the wing, how the angler fish casts its bait, how the osprey dives, the vulture waits, the python strikes, the mongoose fights, the horned frog swallows, the octopus smothers, the spitting spider spits, the long-eared bat listens, and the woodpecker uses a tool. Each animal's unique methods of hunting and trapping are described in brief texts and illustrated with Kitchen's hyper-real paintings that leave nothing to the young imagination. While very young readers may be alarmed and frightened by the presentation, older children will welcome the unflinching candor and honesty they will find here. Kitchen minces no words. He just portrays animals doing what they do to survive, and he does it in elegant detail. (Nonfiction/Picture book. 4+)