Review Detail

McGuinness' mixed media illustrations have a colored pencil quality that I loved, and captured the hidden quality of the animals in their natural backgrounds so well that I had to look twice and the pictures and refocus my eyes in order to see them sometimes! I didn't know that there were praying mantises that looked like flowers, and I can see young children wanting to look many of these animals up online to see photographs of them. I'm sure they would be able to compare the drawings very favorably to the real thing.

Younger readers will be content to follow just the large, single sentence story, but older ones will want to read all of the notes describing the different animals and insects that are portrayed, which gives this book a lot of staying power. I appreciated that there was an index in the back, since it is never too early to acquaint young readers with the parts of nonfiction texts.

I remember being enthralled by the idea of arctic hares after I read Asheron's The Three Coats of Benny Bunny, so it's always a good idea to get children interested in science topics. Animals are a great place to start. Jenkins has a number of titles, including Animal Homes and Animal Babies, and the consistency of format will make young readers want to check out all of the titles. This is also a good companion to Collard's Hopping Ahead of Climate Change, Jenkins' Look Again, or Arnosky's I See Animals Hiding.