Living Color, by Steve Jenkins

Color is an important adaptation of animals and bright colors often signal danger, or attractiveness to the opposite sex, or may offer camouflage in some environments. Red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, and pink each have one or two doublespreads featuring animals in these brilliant colors particularly striking here against the white pages with brief facts about the color's advantage to the animal. Postage stamp illustrations with facts about size, habitat and diet of each animal fill out the last several pages. Many of these animals are unfamiliar and while this is a fascinating book to browse, I wish the author would include an index. This may be one of the few sources of information about many of these animals in print collections.

Dogs and Cats, by Steve Jenkins.

Dogs and cats each deserve their own book and here the reader is given both in one package. Read about cats; flip the book and read about dogs. Lots of interesting facts are presented about each of these popular pets including descriptions of their variety, how they came to live with people, what makes each one special, and unique facts about each. The illustrator's trademark textured collage illustrations complete the package.

Grades 2-5