Review by Booklist Review
Ages 4^-7. This attractive book presents the many roles that fathers play in the animal kingdom, leaving it to children and parents to draw analogies to their own families. Short phrases in large type serve as text for reading aloud to young children, and, for each phrase, a paragraph of more detailed information appears. This methods offers background material for adults to draw on or to read aloud to kids who want to hear more. Beautifully crafted, paper-collage artwork appears on every page. Jenkins, who wrote and illustrated Big and Little (1995) and Biggest, Strongest, Fastest (1996), creates a series of well-composed full-page and double-page pictures that make this a particularly striking-looking science book for young children. --Carolyn Phelan
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This eye-catching book is a celebration of all the things human and animal dads do: building homes, playing, watching out for strangers, baby-sitting, housecleaning and evenin the case of the seahorse and pipefishgiving birth (here the animal world leaves human males in the dust). Collard (Do They Scare You? Creepy Creatures) associates the work of human fathers and animal ones through concurrent streams of text: each spread includes a simple statement of what dads doe.g., "[Dads] shelter us from harm"and a fine-print explanation of the pictured animal dad's actions: a cichlid fish "shelters" his babies by letting them swim into his mouth. Likewise, the line "And help us find our voice" is accompanied by a meadowlark teaching his son to sing. Jenkins's (Duck's Breath and Mouse Pie: A Collection of Animal Superstitions) handsome cut-paper collages include inspired choices of texture: fibrous papers suggest, alternately, fur, grass, bark, scales and sand. He uses deftly cut shapes and strong, remarkably varied colors: one underwater scene of a swimming salmon dad fairly glows, as if the rice-paper rocks were catching light filtered through water. While one page acknowledges that "Some dads go away," the bulk of the book is a tribute to those guys who "do things for us that we never even know"a timely sentiment with Father's Day around the corner. Ages 4-8. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2Animal Dads takes a refreshing look at the natural world with fathers cast in the caregiver role. Fish, birds, and mammals demonstrate a wide array of parenting skills as the male of the species protects, feeds, and teaches. Each father and his offspring are presented on a single or double-page spread, illustrated with striking, cut-paper collage figures. The large, lifelike creatures are set against backgrounds that are true to each animal's natural habitat. Representing rivers, woods, grasslands, treetops, and desert burrows, the backdrops make for an interesting and varied layout. There are two levels of text; a simple explanatory sentence in large print and more detailed information about the behavior of each animal father in small print make this book appropriate for different age groups. Mentioned briefly are dads that do not participate in the rearing of their young. As animal fathers have been overshadowed by the numerous books featuring animal mothers, this unique selection helps balance the science shelves for young children.Diane Nunn, Richard E. Byrd Elementary School, Glen Rock, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
The text highlights the roles and responsibilities of male parents in the wild, primarily the protection and care of their young. The presentation draws obvious parallels to idealized human father roles, describing mainly the animal activities considered positive from human perspectives ('Housecleaning dads? Sure'). The cut-paper collage illustrations are vibrant but often make the text hard to read. From HORN BOOK 1997, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
This striking picture book celebrates the many ways male animals function in their family units: Every page combines one line--narrated by the offspring--with a vividly colored, textured paper collage of an animal father and child, and an additional paragraph of information. Layered, crinkled, subtly shaded, fibrous, and shadowed shapes give a three-dimensional quality to the appealing portraits. Some sentences are immediately clear and can stand alone, e.g., ""They build us homes to live in""; others are vague, e.g., ""And just tidy us up"" is the sentence fragment that appears on the gorillas' spread, making the paragraph of explanation mandatory. The animals are diverse: tamarins, poison arrow frogs, desert isopods, lions, stickleback fish, emperor penguin, etc. The statements are often profound, e.g., the meadowlark ""help[s] us find our voice,"" and, in the case of the gopher tortoise, ""some dads go away. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
