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Animals and Their Families (review)

Nascimbeni introduces youngsters to thirty-two animals and their sounds, habitats, and food in this attractive French import. Each spread features, on the verso, a black silhouette of the animal against a white background with the animal’s name in large black typeface, while the recto side shows a color, illustrative rendering of the male, female, and juvenile (with proper gender and juvenile names where possible) of the species. Each right-hand page also lists, in small circles at the page’s bottom, “My Sound,” “My Home,” and “My Meal.” The elephant spread, for example, shows two large elephants (one labeled “bull” and the other “cow”) and one small one (“calf ”), along with the information that “I trumpet” (in the “My Sound” circle), “My Home” is “savannah, forest,” and “My Meal” is “grass, leaves, plants.” For some species, however, no information is provided for some categories of information (gender or juvenile names or the animal’s sound), and there’s no explanation anywhere in the book for the absence; the habitat labels vary from the specificity of “Australian plains” (the kangaroo) to the problematic vagueness of “sea ice” (the polar bear). Nascimbeni’s affectionate animal portraits give this loads of visual appeal, though; the rosy-cheeked critters, in soft grainy textures that suggest colored pencil, are literal enough to maintain the instructional tone of the information, but they are also cheerfully cuddly (the piglets and rabbit kits are particularly winning). Despite some flaws, the handsome art, sturdy book construction (both pages and cover are extra-thick), kid-centric topic, and simplified presentation of information give this a number of uses. JH