Who Has This Tail? - Hardcover

Hulbert, Laura

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805094296 ISBN 13: 9780805094299

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 2012

Synopsis

Short and fuzzy, long and scaled: no matter their size and shape, tails aren't just hanging around―they're useful! This fun, informative book invites readers to guess the owner of nine tails, and then turn the page to see the animal and its tail in action.

About this title

About the Authors

Laura Hulbert has been an elementary educator for over twenty-five years and is the author of Who Has These Feet? She lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she is currently a learning specialist at Brooklyn Friends School.

Erik Brooks has illustrated, as well as written, a number of books for children, including Polar Opposites and The Practically Perfect Pajamas. He, his wife and daughter, and their dog, Max, live in north central Washington State.

Reviews

PreS-Gr 2-Expanding on the concept presented in Who Has These Feet? (Holt, 2011), this anatomical guessing game, illustrated in soft watercolors, allows readers to try to connect a tail to the correct animal. With a large font and generous white space, the opening spread for each animal asks, "Who has this tail?" while a large, detailed illustration shows only the tail in question. A page turn reveals the answer and a full-bleed spread of the animal in its habitat along with a fact about how it uses its tail. Various animals are featured, including a rattlesnake, a beaver, a spider monkey, and a horse, but all are a challenge to guess out of context on the white backgrounds. The concise information does a nice job of demonstrating the many different functions a tail can serve-a gerbil uses it for balance, while an Arctic fox uses it to stay warm. The book closes with a summarizing gatefold matching all the animals with their tails.-Julie Roach, Cambridge Public Library, MAα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The creators of Who Has These Feet? (2011) follow up with a similarly engaging, if less successful, guessing game. The format is the same, with a close-up tail paired to the titular question in very large type, followed by a spread with views of the whole animal in a natural setting and a one-sentence description of the tail’s basic function. Most of the tails are easily recognizable, but some—spider monkey, gerbil, arctic fox—are more generic, and the impersonal pronoun used throughout the patterned text doesn’t really fit the line: “A peacock uses its tail to attract a mate.” Still, the painted art is clean of line and accurate in detail, the predictable design invites audience participation, and the double gatefold at the end serves double-duty as both a cap to the presentation and a recap gallery of the animals. Preschool-Grade 2. --John Peters

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805094296
• ISBN 13: 9780805094299
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Brooks Erik
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40