The Horn Book Guide

PICTURE BOOKS

Edwards, Wallace

Unnatural Selections

32 pp. | Orca | October, 2014 | Trade ISBN 978-1-4598-0555-2 $19.95 | Ebook ISBN 978-1-4598-0557-6

(4) K-3 Traveling artist Professor I.B. Doodling introduces readers to a dozen mix-and-match creatures, starting with Whalephant (that's "whale" plus "elephant") and ending with Skip (a seven-animal hybrid). The spare accompanying rhymes can be one-size-fits-all (for Whalephant: "Everyone who gets to see him, / secretly would like to be him"), but the particularized, full-page portraits of the hybrids are downright frame-worthy.

Reviewer: Nell Beram