AMAZING ANIMAL FRIENDSHIPS

Some readers might be familiar with birds that remove troublesome insects from large animals’ hides and maybe with wrasses and other animals that remove parasites from larger fish, but most will not have been exposed to the range of species and complexity of interactions that are described in this innocent-seeming picture book.

Each double-page spread consists of an introduction and brief paragraphs and illustrations arranged across the pages, Dorling Kindersley–style. The light-colored, humorous watercolor sketches of animals in their habitats have joke headings and speech balloons, and there are some funny sketches such as a hippo that gives a ride to a turtle and a heron. But the text of some of the spreads seems far too sophisticated for the age group for which the illustrations are apparently intended. A spread on bees and plants uses higher-level vocabulary—“Diligent pollinators” reads one heading—and kids reading this would certainly need an adult on hand to explain concepts and words. The approach seems problematic; nerdy kids with a real interest in interspecies interaction may find the illustrations too low-level to be engaging, and kids who enjoy the artwork may well not be able to understand the text. It almost feels like a high school chapter on symbiosis masquerading as a children’s picture book.

Neither fish nor fowl…