And So They Build - Hardcover

Bert Kitchen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0744525403 ISBN 13: 9780744525403

Publisher: Walker Books, 1993

Synopsis

Kitchen takes readers into the extraordinary world of animal behavior with descriptions of 12 astonishing architects and explanations of why and how they build their marvelous structures. His color illustrations, both lovely and precise in the artist/naturalist tradition of Audubon, show animals and insects as they work.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

An artist known for his elegant sense of design and meticulous paintings (Animal Alphabet, 1984, ALA Notable) depicts 12 animal-built structures: Australia's mallee fowl make self- warming nests of composting vegetable matter covered with sand, controlling the temperature until their eggs hatch; Africa's Cubeterme termites build columns of soil, riddled with chambers for different functions and topped with an umbrella-like cap to ``divert torrential rain''; a pregnant harvest mouse weaves a nest of still-rooted grasses, so that the nest continues to rise to greater safety. Birds predominate here, but a frog, spider, and fish are also included. Kitchen's concise descriptions are almost as lucid as his beautifully composed pictures. He's content simply to present these fascinating animal behaviors, leaving readers to make their own generalizations; but he offers so much variety, and so many implicit commonalities, that the book is sure to engender rational insights--as well as wonder at nature's fecund ingenuity. (Nonfiction/Picture book. 4-10) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 3-5. In an intriguing thematic approach, noted illustrator Kitchen--Animal Alphabet (1984); Animal Numbers (1987)--examines 12 different animal builders and the design purposes behind each of their unique constructions. From satin bowerbirds to swallows, from cubiterme termites to harvest mice, the animals profiled vary from the exotic to the familiar. With each animal, Kitchen provides an information-laden paragraph or two about the animal's lifestyle and building activities on the left-hand page and an exquisitely detailed portrait of the animal and its construction within a natural landscape on the right-hand page (although the tiny termites are not readily visible in the painting of their large, umbrella-shaped nests). While it is disappointing that Kitchen fails to include either resource notes or a bibliography of suggested titles for further reading, this handsome picture book for older readers provides a fascinating glimpse of some of the architectural wonders to be found within the animal world and will be a welcome addition to most natural-history collections. Annie Ayres

Edition details

• Publisher: Walker Books
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0744525403
• ISBN 13: 9780744525403
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32