As a digital subscriber, you’ll receive unlimited access to Horn Book web exclusives and extensive archives, as well as access to our highly searchable Guide/Reviews Database.
To access other site content, visit The Horn Book homepage.
To continue you need an active subscription to hbook.com.
Subscribe now to gain immediate access to everything hbook.com has to offer, as well as our highly searchable Guide/Reviews Database, which contains tens of thousands of short, critical reviews of books published in the United States for young people.
Thank you for registering. To have the latest stories delivered to your inbox, select as many free newsletters as you like below.
No thanks. Return to article
(2)
K-3
For some animal species, there are evolutionary advantages to social groupings. "Packs, herds, huddles, and pods. Together, we are better." Salyer introduces young readers to many of the creative words used to describe animal aggregations (an army of frogs, a flamboyance of flamingos, an implausibility of wildebeest) but also explains just what those groupings provide: care for their young (elephants, lions); communication to locate food and prey (bats, bees); and safety in numbers (zebras, mongooses). The richly colored illustrations portray the multitudes, often oriented to seem to flow past the observer, or to highlight how animals clustered together make it hard to identify individuals or distinguish them from their backgrounds. The final double-page spread connects the book's message to a familiar social animal--humans--as people of all ages, genders, and ethnicities happily congregate in a village square. "All together...we are better!" Notes at the end of the book identify the exact species portrayed in the illustrations, and caution that many of these species are under threat of extinction. Also appended with a brief bibliography.
Reviewer: Danielle J. Ford
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
March, 2020