Judy Allen is an award-winning author who has written more than forty-five books for children. Her novel Awaiting Developments won the U.K. Whitbread Children's Novel Award, the U.K. Friends of the Earth Award, and was nominated for the U.K. Carnegie Medal.
Mike Bostock is a highly respected illustrator with numerous awards to his name including a TES Junior Information Book Award, Friends of the Earth's Earthworm Award, and a Parent's Choice Illustration Award for his first picture book, Think of an Eel.
The I Wonder Why: Flip the Flaps series, aimed at readers younger than the publisher’s ongoing I Wonder Why series, offers simply presented information illustrated by attractive watercolors. It also features a novelty format, consisting of half-page flaps alternating with the regular full pages. In this title, the pictures show kids whales and dolphins in varying poses (e.g., a whale heading to the surface to breathe and then exhaling through its blowhole). Using large type and short sentences, the book briefly covers topics like the nature of whales and dolphins and how they breathe, give birth, eat, talk, and travel. Three questions accompany each topic, most spot-on in focusing on what younger children want to know (Are whales and dolphins fish?). Sea blues and greens make an attractive background for the images, each usually tied to some specific bit of information. A solid choice for early nonfiction units. Grades 1-3. --Ilene Cooper