Whales

Children's Literature - Meredith Kiger

Everything you wanted to know about creepy critters has been provided in this text by a biologist with the Booth Museum of Natural History in Brighton, England. Finding food, getting about, hiding and showing off are some of the areas of interest covered in 32 pages full of all kinds of bugs, beetles, worms and butterflies. Accurate illustrations and an interesting layout will make this appealing to the young bug lover.

Children's Literature - Rae Valabek

This book gives many facts about whales in an easy to use format that combines photographs, diagrams, and text. The two groups of whales, toothed and baleen, are discussed and compared. Topics such as communication, migration, and breathing are clearly explained. A glossary, pronunciation guide and index make this book easy to use as a reference book, especially for elementary school children. Part of the "Mondo Animals" series.

School Library Journal

Gr 3-5An easy-to-follow overview. Using a generalist approach, the authors explain why whales are not fish and describe physical features common to all whales. Such behaviors as swimming, breathing, feeding, communication, and reproduction are described in two-page spreads. Illustrations on every page are colorful and engaging, from the "in-your-face" close-up photograph of two bottlenose dolphins to the overhead photograph of a blue whale with its throat pleats extended and full. The text is amplified by drawings that indicate the differences between many of the 75 species of whales; diagrams that identify their body parts and physiology; and a map that shows the migration patterns of the fin, humpback, and grey whales. Sometimes the lack of specificity is frustrating, e.g., the statement "the teeth of some species of toothed whale never break through the gums" never states which species. Although the diagram of echolocation is clear, the explanation is so brief that the dolphins' use of sound waves as a weapon is not included. The history of whale hunting is described in two paragraphs, and although world-wide efforts at protection are mentioned, the present dangers to whales are not.Frances E. Millhouser, Chantilly Regional Library, VA