Armadillos Sleep in Dugouts: And Other Places Animals Live - Hardcover

From the collaborators behind Pinky Is a Baby Mouse (p. 468) and following its format, a book about animal homes and habitats. Rhyming quatrains with a typical A-B-C-B metrical pattern each end in a first-person question, e.g., ``I'm an Arctic lemming. Where will my household be?'' The required page turn divulges another short verse that expounds on a particular dwelling. Fox's den and spider's web are interspersed with the less familiar squirrel's drey, badger's sett, or river otter's holt, introducing unusual vocabulary in easily understood context. Backyard, jungle, savannnah, forest, and ice floe provide a variety of safe locations; the text also visits rufous ovenbirds, pampas deer, garden bowerbirds, and African termites. Woodsy, naturalistic watercolor habitats harbor sets of creatures with similar environs. Several of the lines are awkward or out of meter, making this difficult to read aloud, and no new territory is charted; instead, it's a smattering of brief encounters and a mild overview of the range of animal homes. (Picture book. 4-7) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Kindergarten-Grade 2. A rhythmic rhyming text introduces children to the concept of differing terms for animal "homes"?some constructed like a beaver's lodge or a gray squirrel's drey, and others simply part of the habitat, like the rain-forest canopy "home" of the sloth or a thicket for pampas deer. Almost 30 differing critters from badgers to bowerbirds are cited in the brief notations. All are accompanied by warm, double-page watercolors that depict the animals in their native habitats. Missing, unfortunately, is a listing of the animals and a map of some sort showing global distribution, so parents/teachers of the extra curious may find themselves doing some research to answer unexpected questions. There also seems to be some confusion between living "in" or "on" a holt, and the term "furrows" and "burrows." Still and all, a pleasant, friendly book from the same team that produced A Pinky Is a Baby Mouse (Hyperion, 1997).?Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.