An Arctic Tundra Food Chain

Gr 5–8—These reissues of "Nature's Bounty" (Creative Education, 2009) have been repackaged. These offerings are smaller in size and feature new covers and titles and a rearrangement of photos; otherwise, they're the same, including the selected bibliographies. Each volume examines a different food chain from a North American biome: for instance, Rainforest begins with the cacao tree, then discusses the leafcutter ant (which collects the cacao's leaves), moves on to the anteater, and finishes with the boa constrictor (which preys upon the anteater). Full pages devoted to different animals are inserted throughout. While informative, these inclusions interrupt the flow of the main text. The well-written prose uses analogies such as "about the size of a sixth-grader's thumb" to describe the size of a queen leafcutter ant and wonderfully descriptive phrases, including "salmon…pluck the sardines off like grapes" that will draw readers in. The captioned photos, while dramatic, play a minor supporting role. They often don't provide wide full-body views of the subjects or labels.