MAISY'S WORLD OF ANIMALS

Maisy meets smiling animals in habitats from jungle to ocean in her newest First Science Book.

The tour starts in the Arctic, where, with a pull of a large tab, a polar bear yanks a herring out of the water (to the relief, no doubt, of the several onlooking seals), and ends in the Antarctic, where penguins dive for food and lift wings to reveal a chick and an egg. In between, Maisy watches or greets wildlife found in six other world climes. Except for an ostrich on the savanna and an octopus and other denizens of the ocean, the animals on each spread save the last are identified in visual sidebar keys. Throughout, the accompanying narrative offers morsels of background information like “Maisy is very hot in the savanna,” or “Look at all the sand in the desert.” Aside from a double gatefold in the middle that opens to reveal a blue whale, the typically inviting but fragile interactive effects are driven by a pull tab on each recto. They cause meerkats to pop up, a lion to slide out of the tall grass, Maisy and a monkey to swing past one another in the jungle, and other gratifying events.

For armchair travelers newly or not yet out of diapers, Maisy again serves as a safe and comfortably familiar companion with whom to explore the wider world.