Synopsis
Author and photographer Wayne Lynch reveals the world of wild animals. Each creature is introduced by showing a photo highlighting one feature and some clues. Then the complete animal is pictured along with more facts.
Joella Peterson - Children's Literature
Whose Bottom is This? is part of the "Name that Animal!" series. The book is set up as a guessing game. On one page the author has a picture of an animal's bottom and gives clues as to what animal it is. Then, the reader turns the page to learn "whose bottom is this?" One of the main problems with this book is that the book uses very specific animals as subjects when it only gives very general clues. For example, the author tells about one animal that has "a beautiful fan of shiny feathers" and "every spring, males like me gather in groups to dance and show off." The animal turns out to be a Sage Grouse. The simplistic clues could point to any number of birds, yet it turns out to be one of the 18 different species of grouse. When giving clues about a duck, the reader finds that it is not just a duck, but a "male pintail duck." The idea for the book is wonderful; however, the text does not give specific enough clues for the animals chosen. Readers might be frustrated that they cannot guess the animals correctly, or if they guess the right animal, they are wrong because they did not guess the correct species. For readers who would like to learn about animal tails without the simple text and possible frustration, Tails That Talk and Fly by Diane Swanson gives large amounts of information on animal tails. 2003 (orig. 2000), Gareth Stevens Publishing,