Reviews+

Gr 1—3—Riveting, close-up photos of mantises looking inscrutably at readers and brightly lit centipedes and spiders either in natural settings or cut out and placed on blank backgrounds will draw young audiences to these introductions...

Gr 4—6—After brief overviews of the kinds of paper, pencils, markers, and paint to buy, these books include a "Master Class" spread that will help when creating some of the other drawings in the book...

Gr 2—3—Designed to prepare students for visits to zoos or nature parks, each of these volumes provides basic background information about a type of animal usually found in such places, enhanced by shaped cutout photos and shots of creatures in artificial settings...

K-Gr 3—Tonatiuh relates key moments in the famous muralist's life and ponders what would capture his interest if he were alive today...

Gr 3—5—Solid scientific material is presented in accessible language and a visually engaging, boldly colored layout...

K-Gr 1—Though possibly useful for extending ideas of what constitutes a "family," in other respects these volumes are of uneven quality at best...

Gr 9 Up—Aside from new introductions and (possibly) new material in the closing bibliographical essays, these independent surveys rearrange content from Britannica Online Encyclopedia to present broad pictures of the Middle East's varied physical and cultural landscapes, cultural highlights, and history (through early 2010, so the chapters on modern history in Egypt and Yemen are out of date)...

K-Gr 3—The appeal of Gibb's version of the classic tale, in a post-Tangled movie world, is in its whimsical collage illustrations...

PreS-Gr 2—The pirates of the Dragonfish of Doom discover that their coffers are empty, necessitating a new quest for doubloons and other plundered goods...