”How to Clean a Hippopotamus” by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page, ages 6 to 9, $16
Learning nature’s curious partnerships is a sensational experience in “How to Clean a Hippopotamus” by the award-winning husband-wife team of Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. Their vivid, cut-paper illustrations will have readers returning again and again to pore over the picture book.
The book begins with questions like “Why does a giraffe let an oxpecker climb into its ear?” and “Why does a crab wave an anemone like a pompom?”
What follows are illustrations of animals working together to survive. The author-artists show and tell how these symbiotic relationships work. They create sequential scenes, in the style of a graphic novel, to convey movement. In three frames, readers see a Nile crocodile with its snaggle-toothed mouth open and an Egyptian plover tiptoeing inside to pull up a bit of meat from the croc’s teeth.
For readers who want to know more, notes about each of the 54 animals and a short bibliography appear at the back of the book.
As for the question on hippo cleaning, it’s a job for the African helmeted turtle.
“Yucky Worms” by Vivian French, ages 4 to 8, $17
Worms may have a yucky image problem, but for the young boy in this unexpectedly humorous picture book, worms become fascinating creatures of the garden.
Author Vivian French lets the boy’s grandma teach him about the creatures. Artist Jessica Ahlberg uses cutaway drawings to show worm body parts (with five pairs of hearts) and its web of tunnels. Occasionally the worm comments via a dialog bubble.
Ahlberg’s gardens appear in airy pastel illustrations. There’s nothing yucky about this worm, which earns a bit of respect.
“But I Wanted a Baby Brother!” by Kate Feiffer and Diane Goode, ages 4 to 8, $17
Kate Feiffer hits a bull’s-eye with her witty take on a young boy’s emotions when the baby brother he expected turns out to be a baby sister. Redheaded Oliver Keaton wants a replacement. He tries to make a trade and checks the classified ads for a used baby boy.
No luck. His turmoil leaps from every page in Diane Goode’s illustrations.
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