A surefire hit for budding wildlife biologists.
Come along on an informative countdown of 10 of the world’s smallest mammals.
Most children are familiar with elephants, cats, and dogs. But what about their smaller cousins? An anthropomorphized ferret, clad in a jaunty bow tie and jacket, takes readers on a museum tour to learn about 10 mini-mammals from all over the world. This newest addition to Stewart’s prolific portfolio of nonfiction picture books is chock-full of riveting information about these smallest of specimens: In the winter, when food is scarce, the Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur consumes insect poop; the Etruscan pygmy shrew takes 40 breaths in the same amount of time a human breathes once. The author also tells an engaging story that makes adept use of humor and alliteration as the furry narrator wrangles the subjects into ranked order, from the (relatively) largest to the very tiniest; the ferret’s asides and questions build suspense (“Is this lively leaper the mini-est mammal of all?”) and add whimsy. Lies’ illustrations, created with acrylic paint and colored pencil, are amazingly lifelike, featuring incredible texture and detail. Each spread depicts a creature gazing out earnestly from a wooden picture frame; the facing page shows the mammal in its natural habitat. That each of the featured animals is portrayed true to size will further delight youngsters. Readers can delve even deeper with the appended “Mini-Mammal Small Stats” section, while a list of selected sources will extend their learning further.
A surefire hit for budding wildlife biologists. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781665947169
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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