Review by Booklist Review
This companion volume to Davies and Sutton's Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes (2014) celebrates the diversity of life on Earth and the sheer quantity of species (two million identified and thousands more discovered each year) in varied habitats. One double-page spread introduces a few of those found in the last 50 years. Organisms interact in complex ways, forming a big, beautiful, complicated pattern, but people's actions (pollution, overfishing, deforestation) threaten that pattern. Davies asks kids to consider the animals that are now extinct and to restore the environment that supports living things today. She writes with simplicity and a driving sense of purpose: we could not keep living on Earth if we had to count down instead of up . . . from MANY to one. While capturing the profusion of varied life-forms in different environments, Sutton's attractive watercolor illustrations often include a girl who stands in for the reader, observing her surroundings and sometimes taking notes. A handsome book that delivers its message within vibrant scenes of the natural world.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
With a streamlined narrative and intricate, folk-art images evoking Mary Blair-illustrated Golden Books, Davies and Sutton, the team behind Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes, sound an alarm about species extinction. Employing the concept of one versus many, the book asks, "How many different kinds of living things are there on our planet?" The answer is "Many!" and busy scenes of flora and fauna showcase an abundance of life across diverse ecosystems. Other spreads resemble pages from a field guide, with labeled vignettes of life forms, such as the SpongeBob fungus. The positive vibe ends, however, with a spread showing the various ways humans are destroying habitats. A redheaded girl-the book's "tour guide," who has admired and taken notes on wildlife-appears solo and sad on the last page, with the text warning, "We could not keep living on Earth if we had to count down instead of up from many to one." Though the conclusion is dire (and no solutions to overpopulation are offered), this early entrée into environmental interconnectedness and stewardship should launch plenty of discussion. Ages 5-8. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-A call to all young children to notice the rich diversity of life, its interconnectedness, and humanity's role in its devolution. Representing readers' potential to understand these concepts is a red-headed, freckled, pig-tailed girl taking it all in. She uses binoculars to see details in a jungle canopy, wears scuba gear to get close to ocean life, and takes notes wherever she stands, clipboard and pen in hand. The brief text lacks animal identification on most every page, naming only a few of the individual fora and fauna except for two spreads, one introducing new species and the other identifying extinct ones. On a serious note, young observers glimpse destruction of habitat and life and the ecological damage by farming, fishing, industrial, and construction practices. Gravity, hope, and joy are all intertwined in Davies's and Sutton's presentation. VERDICT The quality of the watercolors and text make this an appealing choice for large libraries that serve young children.-Nancy Call, Santa Cruz Public Libraries, Aptos, CA © Copyright 2017. 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
How many different kinds of living things are there on our planet? One, two, three, MANY! With this important question and response, Davies begins her consideration of biodiversity, starting with the idea that there can be many kinds, or species, of one living thing (two kinds of elephants; more than six hundred kinds of oak trees), and gradually explaining that these many kinds of things can live and interact with one another. Humans enter the equation, too, first through a young girl (equipped with notebook and pencil to count the kinds of organisms) depicted within many of the illustrations and then later in descriptions of the disruptive effects of human activities on the environment and the importance of protecting biodiversity. Suttons spectacular illustrations, filled with tens or hundreds of living things, take the concept of many to the extreme: the pictures are dense yet delicate, full of color and life and movement; readers could spend hours counting all the different species pictured in forests, deserts, and the ocean or in collection baskets, on tables, and in museum dioramas. Davies has a keen sense of how to represent science for beginners. Sentences as sensible and jargon-free as Sometimes, things that look different are really the sameand things that look the same are really different contain deep mathematical and biological concepts that include ecosystems and interdependence, relative quantities, biomes, food webs, and the classification of living things. danielle j. ford (c) Copyright 2017. 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
Writer and zoologist Davies celebrates the "big, beautiful, complicated pattern" that is life on Earth. Starting with "one, two, three"a roach, an observant child, and a flowering bushthe narrator then leaps to the concept of "MANY," asking young readers and listeners to think about the many, many kinds of living things that inhabit our planet. The freckle-faced rosy-cheeked white girl who explored the world of microbes in Davies and Sutton's Tiny Creatures (2014) returns to observe creatures large and small living in widely varied habitats. One striking double-page spread shows the rich diversity of a coral reef; the next depicts and labels 31 different species found in just the last 50 years. For the most part these folk-art-inspired, intricate watercolor paintings are placed on a white background that includes a relatively simple narrative for reading aloud and further detail in captions in a smaller, italicized font. After the display of abundance and a reminder that living things depend on each other in complicated ways, the author gently advises us that "human beings are destroying pieces of the pattern." A pair of spreads show first a lushly populated rain forest and then the same area with some trees cut down and animals leaving; the third in the sequence shows a museum exhibit of extinct species. We can't survive as one. A sobering message presented gloriously. (Informational picture book. 6-10) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
