ON THE MOUNTAIN

Five types of North American animals pop up over alpine slopes and meadows.

In big, centered pop-ups that really elevate as each spread opens, a pair of wolf cubs races toward viewers, a rainbow trout gapes, a bighorn sheep lowers his head ominously, two roly-poly black bear cubs tumble, and a bald eagle soars. In the backgrounds, which, like the animal stars, are done in a cut-paper–collage style, triangular trees, bright wildflowers, and lush green grasses perch decoratively on rocky hillsides or wave sinuously in the flowing water. Walden adds bland but bouncy rhymes (“As the sun soars in the sky, / Two bumbling, tumbling bears roll by”) and, in smaller type, a few bits of natural history about each creature or about mountains in general: “The highest point of a mountain is the summit or the peak.” The co-published Across the Savannah features the same approach and the same sort of large figures (all African, notwithstanding an observation that savannahs are found on four continents), including a toothily grimacing hippo, towering giraffes, and a quartet of alert meerkats. Both galleries conclude with a final, peaceable-kingdom–style gathering.

Pleasant visits to wild habitats for the Oshkosh set.