Whales

Children's Literature - Marilyn Courtot

As with others in the "First Discovery Book" series, Whales offers basic factual information about these amazing ocean animals. Acetate overlay sheets provide views of skeletal structure and aspects of whale behavior. Young readers learn that whales are mammals, that whales were almost hunted into extinction, and other facts about sizes, shapes and eating habits of several different kinds of whales.

School Library Journal

Gr 1-3-An appealing format is this book's chief asset. Strong, plastic-coated pages are encased in a spiral binding; vivid paintings accompany the minimal text on almost every page. Succinctly described, but placed in random order, are a few physical and behavorial characteristics common to all whales; the basic differences between toothed and baleen varieties; and one or two special characteristics of the 15 different species depicted. Assorted other creatures are also shown, such as the giant squid, walrus, and manatee, but they are merely mentioned. Most, but not all, of the animals are identified by common name; some captions include average body lengths. Six paintings of whales appear on transparent plastic pages, engineered to show one or more from different angles while employing the same background. In the most interesting illustration, one side of the page shows a whale swimming alongside a small fish; when the page is turned, cutaway diagrams reveal the animals' skeletal systems. Another such painting shows the birth of a calf. While the book is visually exciting, the information is limited. More detailed, better-organized material on anatomy and behavior is available in Gail Gibbons's Whales (Holiday, 1991). Millicent Selsam and Joyce Hunt's A First Look at Whales (Walker, 1980) gives more data on the differences between the two types of whales.-Karey Wehner, San Francisco Public Library