A good guessing game but not a great resource to take into the field.
When Tekiela, who previously challenged readers to guess Whose Baby Butt? (2018) can’t find any animal butts, he must make do with snapping pics of their tracks.
The first of two double-page spreads gives readers a close-up photo of an animal track in sand, snow, or mud on the recto and a large-print clue, a tiny silhouette of the animal, and a small-print hint on the verso, the combination of which makes it almost impossible for readers not to be successful. (“This animal’s front paws look like a person’s hand, with five fingers. / It sometimes even dunks its food in water! / Whose track is that? / HINT: This animal has black rings around its tail.”) The following spread reveals a full-color picture of the animal (a raccoon, in this case) and some information about it. The photos of the tracks are a mixed bag. Some are difficult to make out, and the majority show only a single print, though the otter’s row of tracks does include a slide. Robin, bullfrog, earthworm, deer, bobcat, dog, beaver, Canada goose, and bear are the other animals. A backmatter spread of the full tracks of each animal provides readers with very clear illustrations for comparison, but there is no guidance on where to look for or how to cast tracks. Each is labeled with the relative size of the print, and a ruler (in inches only) runs along the bottom.
A good guessing game but not a great resource to take into the field. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-59193-958-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Adventure Publications
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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 Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be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
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
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