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What Do You Do with a Tail Like This?

Name: What Do You Do with a Tail Like This?
Author: Steve Jenkins
ISBN: 9780618256280

by Steve Jenkins, Robin Page

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Overview

A nose for digging? Ears for seeing? Eyes that squirt blood? Explore the many amazing things animals can do with their ears, eyes, mouths, noses, feet, and tails in this beautifully illustrated interactive guessing book, which was awarded a Caldecott Honor.
This title has been selected as a Common Core Text Exemplar (Grades K-1, Read Aloud Informational Text).

A 2004 Caldecott Honor Book

Synopsis

Publishers Weekly

Steve Jenkins contributes another artistically wrought, imaginatively conceived look at the natural world. What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? by Jenkins and wife Robin Page, stages a guessing game. Illustrated with Jenkins's trademark cut-paper art, one spread will show animals' tails (or noses, ears, etc.) as text asks variations of the titular question; turn the page, and the whole bodies of the animals are shown as answers are supplied ("If you're a lizard, you break off your tail to get away"; "If you're a scorpion, your tail can give a nasty sting"). Four pages of illustrated endnotes deliver meaty profiles of the 30 featured creatures. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Steve Jenkins

Robin Page lives in Boulder, Colorado, with her husband and collaborator, Steve Jenkins, and their three children. Along with writing and illustrating children's books, Steve and Robin run a graphic design studio.

Reviews

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Editorials

From the Publisher

“Jenkins, this time in collaboration with his wife, has created yet another eye-opening book.” School Library Journal, Starred

“this array of wide eyes and open mouths will definitely have viewers responding with wide eyes and open mouths of their own.” Kirkus Reviews, Starred

“This is a striking, thoughtfully created book with intriguing facts made more memorable through dynamic art.” Booklist, ALA, Starred Review

“Jenkin’s cutpaper collage illustrations are, as usual, ingenious and remarkable in their clarity, their several components neatly articulating the anatomy of their subjects.” The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

“Steve Jenkins contributes another artistically wrought, imaginatively conceived look at the natural world.” Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly

Children's Literature

In a fascinating informational question and answer text, the authors ask, "What do you do with" a nose, ears, tail, eyes, feet, or a mouth "like this"? Arrayed around the double-page spreads are Jenkins' collage renderings of five different types of the body part under discussion. Mouth differences are explored, for instance, with a pelican scooping fish, an anteater capturing ants, an archerfish shooting its prey, a snake swallowing an egg, and a mosquito sucking blood. Jenkins uses cut-paper collage to good effect here, delineating the different animals with small touches that make each critter stand out. He doesn't miss the articulated mosquito feelers or the toenails on a chimpanzee, either. Edges manage to capture hair, fur, feathers, carapaces, exoskeletons, and the different textures of an animal's outside with uncannily accurate depictions. This is one of those cases where collage seems just right for the subject and its many nuances. The informational aspect of the book is further enhanced with a substantive paragraph, at the book's conclusion, of information about each of the thirty animals mentioned. This is a perfect choice for talking with preschoolers about similarities and differences and an essential introduction to any second through fourth grade animal units because it teaches readers to be sharper observers of any animal's features and how the animal can use that feature. It is a welcome companion to Jenkins' other thoughtful examination of animal patterns, Slap, Squeak, and Scatter: How Animals Communicate. 2003, Houghton Mifflin,

School Library Journal

K-Gr 4-Colorful cut-paper collages provide glimpses of the noses, ears, tails, eyes, mouths, and feet of different creatures, showing that each one uses these body parts in a unique and fascinating manner. Combining a guessing game with factual tidbits, the text offers an attention-grabbing introduction to animal physiology. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Not only does Jenkins (Life on Earth, 2002, etc.) again display a genius for creating paper-collage wildlife portraits with astonishingly realistic skin, fur, and feathers, but here on alternate spreads he zooms in for equally lifelike close-ups of ears, eyes, noses, mouths, feet, and tails. Five examples of each organ thrusting in from beyond the pages' edges for each "What do you do" question precede spreads in which the point of view pulls back to show the whole animal, with a short accompanying caption. Visual surprises abound: a field cricket's ears are actually on its legs; a horned lizard can (and does, here) squirt blood from its eyes as a defense mechanism; in an ingenious use of page design, a five-lined skink's breakable tail enters and leaves the center gutter at different points. Capped by a systematic appendix furnishing more, and often arresting, details-"A humpback whale can be 50 feet long and weigh a ton per foot"-this array of wide eyes and open mouths will definitely have viewers responding with wide eyes and open mouths of their own. (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-9)