A Baby Elephant in the Wild.
By Caitlin O’Connell. Photographs by Caitlin O’Connell & Timothy Rodwell.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $16.99.
Scholastic “Discover More”:
Dolphins. By Penelope Arlon and Tory Gordon-Harris. Scholastic. $7.99.
The Little Duck. By Judy
Dunn. Photographs by Phoebe Dunn. Random House. $6.99.
The Little Rabbit. By Judy
Dunn. Photographs by Phoebe Dunn. Random House. $6.99.
Jasper & Joop: A Perfect Pair—One
Tidy, One Messy. By Olivier Dunrea. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $6.99.
Striking photographs and
straightforward text combine to provide young readers with fascinating
information on such animals as elephants and dolphins – and even the more-mundane
ducks and rabbits – in a variety of attractive new books. A Baby Elephant in the Wild features remarkable photos of a
just-born elephant calf – remarkable because witnessing an elephant birth in
the animals’ natural habitat is rare. Caitlin O’Connell, who has studied
elephants for more than two decades, focuses on the new baby, Liza, using her
to tell young readers what elephants are like from birth through their early
life. O’Connell explains that Liza weighs 250 pounds at birth and will double
in weight within three months. Then, with spare text and plenty of fascinating
photos taken by herself and Timothy Rodwell, O’Connell shows how elephant herds
protect and care for babies, and explains the challenges that even the largest
land animal faces – from lions to poachers and deforestation. O’Connell is
writing for very young children and does not delve deeply into these issues,
but she also does not simplify or sugar-coat them, noting, for example, that
elephants “could eat a small farmer’s whole crop in one night, leaving the
farmer’s family with no food for the year. This makes sharing land with
elephants difficult for farmers.” Most of the book, though, is strictly about
the elephants themselves, not their relationship with humans. O’Connell
includes such interesting information as the fact that elephants continue to
grow throughout their lives and that their closest land relative is a small
rodent called the rock dassie. Most of the book’s considerable attraction,
though, comes from the chance to see elephants in their native habitat – and
observe how they care for the youngest members of their herds.
The story of dolphins in a
Scholastic “Discover More” book also features photos of the animals in the
wild, but this book’s structure is quite different. Like all the works in this
series, it is a highly visual introduction to its topic, with tidbits of
information scattered around pages dominated by multiple photos. As in
O’Connell’s book, there is a lot to learn here, ranging from the fact that
dolphin pods normally have 15 to 20 members to the observation that the orca,
one of the greatest enemies of dolphins, is in fact the biggest dolphin of them
all. There are 42 kinds of dolphins, and this book shows pictures of many of
them, including river dolphins (smaller than ocean dolphins but with longer
snouts – and sometimes colored pink) and the recently discovered Burrunan
dolphin (found in Australian waters). As with the story of elephants, that of
dolphins includes references to the animals’ relationship with humans – both
positive and negative. But in this book too, the focus is on the animals rather
than on people, and the fascinating photos are the best part by far, showing
dolphins herding fish into a tight ball so they can pick them off more easily,
using clicks and whistles to communicate, tending their calves, and playing
games such as chase and catch (using a piece of seaweed). Young readers will
have a new appreciation of these intelligent water-dwelling mammals after
reading this book – and can learn even more from a free digital companion book
available for download by entering a code found in the printed work.
The animals are more-common
ones and the photos are intended to provide an “aww” factor of cuteness rather than
to communicate substantial information in two books from Random House’s “Phoebe
Dunn Collection”: The Little Duck, originally
published in longer form in 1976, and The
Little Rabbit, which dates to 1980 and has also been abridged for this new
edition. The new board-book versions of these books retain all the works’
charm. The duck is seen hatching, growing bit by bit, sitting on the family
dog’s back, interacting with a chicken, rabbit and goat, and eventually
encountering a girl duck and swimming happily with her in a pond. The text here
is thin, trying for an anthropomorphized story about Henry the duck searching
for a friend, but the toddlers at whom the book is aimed will have more fun
with the photos than with the story the pictures are supposed to be
illustrating. The same is true for The
Little Rabbit, in which a girl named Sarah has a bunny named Buttercup that
she loves – but one day in the meadow, Sarah falls asleep and Buttercup wanders
away, encountering a turtle and butterfly before it starts to rain and the
bunny runs for cover and becomes “stuck between some stalks.” Sarah soon
rescues her and all ends happily, in a book that does not even attempt to
provide as much information on a rabbit’s life as The Little Duck provides about a duckling’s – but that is every bit
as warm and heartfelt.
And speaking of warmth,
Olivier Dunrea’s entirely fictional books about goslings are just as cute and
sweet as anything in the “Phoebe Dunn Collection.” But they are books drawn as
well as written by Dunrea – nothing photographic here. Jasper & Joop: A Perfect Pair—One Tidy, One Messy, originally
published last year, is just as much fun now that it is available in board-book
form. The simple story of two best-friend goslings, one “who likes to be tidy”
and one “who likes to be messy,” features predictable minor mishaps with
puddles, piglets, mud, chicks and, eventually, a beehive, into which Joop just
has to poke his bill – resulting in a madcap chase, through which Jasper learns
that being messy is sometimes necessary and not really so bad, while Joop finds
out that getting cleaned up is also no big deal. The goslings have so much fun
together that it is easy to see why they are best friends despite their
differing personalities – which is, of course, exactly the point that Dunrea is
making in this gentle, amusing little fable, with which parents will have a
fine time entertaining infants and children up to around age three.
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