Ann Earle is on the faculty of St. Michael's College. She often watches bats fly over her backyard at night. This is her first book for children. Ms. Earle lives in Richmond, VT.
Henry Cole teaches elementary science at The Langley School. This is the first of many books to come from this talented new artist. Mr. Cole live in Reston, VA.
Gr. 2^-3, younger for reading aloud. From the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out series, this book aims to decrease children's fear of bats by increasing their knowledge and appreciation of the little brown bat, the most common in the U.S. The cogent text talks about bats' wing structure, claws, echolocation, grooming, hibernation, nursing, loss of habitat, and endangerment. Introducing bats as insect eaters, Earle puts their prodigious appetites in terms that children will understand: "Each night a bat chomps half its own weight in bugs. If you weigh 60 pounds, that's like eating 125 peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches every day." The book ends with fast facts on a few other bat species and simple plans for building bat houses. The artwork, combining acrylic paints and colored pencils, includes appealing full-page and double-page illustrations of bats as well as of children watching them. Carolyn Phelan