MIGRATION

From humpback whales to green turtles, 20 examples of seasonal migration illustrate remarkable animal journeys.

Spread by spread, Unwin, who writes regularly about wildlife, provides a brief description of these animals’ journeys. His informal and engaging exposition is set directly on gentle paintings of these creatures in a customary environment. Desmond’s art, created with watercolor, acrylic, ink, pencil, and pencil crayon, incorporates a paragraph of additional information about each species. It is her images that make this oversize album stand out. Caribou swim across an Arctic river; monarch butterflies fill a forest of evergreens in Mexico; red crabs swarm across a road on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. There are both familiar and unfamiliar bird migrations: emperor penguin, Arctic tern, wandering albatross, ruby-throated hummingbird, bar-headed goose, and whooping crane. There are bats; pilchard and salmon; African elephants and wildebeest. This is a U.K. import, and American readers may be surprised by the European examples of animals that also migrate in the Western Hemisphere: great white sharks, barn swallows, and osprey. A different point of view is refreshing, but North American teachers and librarians will want to make sure that they also have books that show these animals closer to home. Since publication in Great Britain in 2018, at least one fact has already become outdated. The use of ultralights to aid whooping crane migration was discontinued in 2016.

An attractive addition to units on migration in the primary or middle grades.