Weird Arizona: Your Travel Guide to Arizona’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets

Weird Friends: Unlikely Allies in the Animal Kingdom

March 25th, 2009 |

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“Sometimes in the wild, animals you might think could hurt each other actually help each other in surprising ways.” Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey provide specific examples of these unusual duos with brief text and humorous pen-and-ink, gouache and watercolor illustrations in Weird Friends: Unlikely Allies in the Animal Kingdom.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Kindergarten-Grade 3–An introduction to symbiosis. The rhino and the cattle egret, the blind shrimp and its buddy the goby, and the red phalaropes paired with the sperm whale-in all, 14 relationships are described, and many exotic animals are introduced. Certainly, the tuatara and its helpful pal the sooty shearwater will be new to youngsters. The typeface is large and easy to read, and the text is either black or white, depending on the background; pages are awash with color. The pen-and-ink, gouache, pastel, and watercolor illustrations are cartoonlike and kid-friendly, and anthropomorphism is rampant: zebras look puzzled; a shark looks angry; scared mackerels swim toward the safety of home; a hippo looks content to have oxpeckers land on its back, etc. There is a helpful pronunciation guide, and the page on where to find weird friends suggests that one must travel far and wide to locate them. This book fills a niche.
Anne Chapman Callaghan, Racine Public Library, WI
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.