This book is breathtaking, a real stand-out visually -- and at the same time grippingly educational and fun for kids. If you want to see that dawning light of curiousity and hunger for understanding in a child that's just learning that it's fun to learn, there's no better book than this one.
The animals are rendered with great richness and depth by (if you look closely) beautiful torn-paper collages. It's so skillfully done by Steve Jenkins that all of the creatures are full of personality, and seem to live in a batik-cartoon world.
The riveting part is how there are so many animals that each have unusual stories revealed through fun and different and interesting body parts. This is not a "first animals" book at all. Rather it gains its fascination by showing how animals make so many different uses of their body parts, uses that go against what you first think.
For instance: A platypus uses its nose "to dig in the mud." But "[i]f you're an elephant, you use your nose to give yourself a bath" [image of trunk squirting water back over elephant's head]. For ears, you learn that a jackrabbit uses its ears to keep cool, and crickets have ears on their knees. A chimpanzee can eat with its feet, and a gecko's feet are sticky so it can walk on the ceiling. And so on.
Engrossing and whimsical from page to page again and again. Just wonderful!
At the end of the book, a section includes a one-paragraph "bio" with additional details about each animal, with the rest of the story on the unique appendage. For example, the chimpanzee has some general description, and also this detail about how they eat with their feet: "Like people, they have an opposable thumb. Unlike us, thy also have an opposable big toe. This allows them to pick up and manipulate things with their feet." This description is obviously way more advanced than the book itself -- but children love to hear more of the story about characters or animals from the adult reading to them, and this book gives you (the adult) the back story for every one of them.
I was floored when What Do You Do with a Tail Like This arrived. Giggly and awed at the same time. The reviews didn't prepare me for how much I'd viscerally like this book the moment I opened it! I cannot recommend this highly enough!
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What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? Paperback
Merobin Stephon
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A fun non-fiction book all kids will love!
Margaret Coyne
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A well-oiled machine that invites its readers to wonder, and marvel, at our natural world.
In What Do You Do with a Tail Like This?, Steve Jenkins and Robin Page (aww, a married couple) make an interactive, educational, and visually arresting guessing game of creature features.Best of all, they utilize the picture book format exceptionally well, in a one-two page turn punch that gets the reader's intellectual juices flowing. First, with a spread of close-ups of interesting animal noses, ears, tails, eyes, feet, or mouths, along with a question: "What do you do with a <> like this?" Then, with a page turn, that shares context and answers to the question posed (incorporating facts about how each animal uses that particular body part) but also the questions implied (such as, what animal WAS that mouth from)? Backmatter, too, gives further context on each of the 30 animals featured for those who want to dig even deeper.The result is that readers learn exciting facts about a wide variety of animals, as well as broader topics like adaptation, biodiversity, and more.Now, about the art: gorgeous textured paper collage animals, set against a white background that showcases each animal's unique features and anatomy. But that is not all! There is a little bit of humor here, too--especially when the gutter gets used to cheekily showcase a lizard's tail break and when we see the answer to the little-asked question, "Has anyone ever illustrated a horned lizard squirting blood out of its eyes?" (Yep, it turns out.)Unsurprisingly, this vivid and inviting book received a 2004 Caldecott Honor, and it was undoubtedly earned. Using the mechanics of a picture book so effectively, this book is a well-oiled machine that invites its readers to wonder, and marvel, at our natural world.
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Cliente Amazon
Excelente livro para momentos de interação com as crianças
Reviewed in Brazil on March 24, 2020