  | Full Text Reviews: Booklist - 06/01/2014 Have aliens invaded Earth? No, it’s just another stellar partnership for Jenkins and Page, this time presenting 25 unusual animals. In a question-and-answer format, each animal speaks in the first person to explain the purpose of its bizarre features. When asked, “Have you ever thought about getting braces?,” the toothy mole rat replies, “Not really. I dig tunnels through the earth with my teeth.” To “What is that weird thing growing on your face?,” the star-nosed mole answers, “I use the tentacles on my snout to feel my way in the dark.” Two show-stopper portraits are the pink-tinted blob fish’s smushed head against a brilliant azure background and the toothless horned frog’s head with its “ginormous” mouth. The flat, brightly colored backgrounds make the nuanced cut-paper and collage faces pop. Back matter includes a bibliography and silhouettes of the animals compared to humans, as well as their geographic range and diet. It’s a splendid introduction and a memorable read-aloud for young children. - Copyright 2014 Booklist. School Library Journal - 06/01/2014 Pres-Gr 2—Did you ever wonder why an Egyptian vulture has feathers on his face, or why a frilled lizard has extra skin around his neck? These curiosities are explained in a Q & A—style interview as 25 unique animals offer up their personal insights (for example, "Dear Tapir: Why is your nose crooked?" "My nose isn't always twisted. I bend it when I want to reach some tender leaves or fruit."). Loaded with nuggets of information and layered in humor, this is a winning picture book that is sure to inform as well as entertain. The illustrations are designed in torn- and cut-paper collage and depict each animal with texture and style. Background colors are bold and bright and provide a balanced backdrop to each animal. Back matter includes a chart of each animal's geographical location and diet for additional research.—Melissa Smith, Royal Oak Public Library, MI - Copyright 2014 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Bulletin for the Center... - 01/01/2015 Estimable natural historian Jenkins turns here to a Q&A format in this gallery of unusual animal features. Each page offers a question (“Dear Egyptian vulture: Why no feathers on your face?”), an answer (“Are you sure you want to know? . . . I stick my face into the bodies of the dead animals I eat, and feathers would get pretty messy”), and a full-face portrait with emphasis on the feature in question. Characteristics discussed are generally intriguing and even grotesque, such as the mandrill’s colorful nose (“My rear end is pretty colorful too”), the horned frog’s “ginormous” mouth, the red squirrel’s furry ears, and the giraffe’s purple tongue. The language of the questions is funny, varied, and irreverent, and the answers are as personable as they are compactly informative. The facial focus makes the experience even more like a face-to-face interview, and the cut-paper illustrations are particularly strong on dimensional oddities such as the star-nosed mole’s anemone-like proboscis and the puffer fish’s inflated prickliness. Though the text is accessible for reading alone, the Q&A format is a natural for a lively and unusual readaloud-funny voices optional but recommended. A closing cleverly designed diagram identifies the scale of all the animals and their usual habitat; a brief bibliography is also included. DS - Copyright 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Loading...
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