Synopsis
Meticulously accurate, beautiful paintings capture the various ways in which mammals, birds, and insects capture and devour their prey, in a study of the role of predators in the drama of life and death in the wild.
Reviews
Grade 1-3-A companion volume to Kitchen's Somewhere Today (1992) and And So They Build (1993, both Candlewick), which explore aspects of animal behavior. Here, each of the 12 eye-catching, full-page illustrations is accompanied by a paragraph describing the featured creature and how it goes about satisfying its hunger. Some depict dramatic, hunting/scavenging techniques, such as those employed by a killer whale and a great black-backed gull. A Galapagos woodpecker finch is shown winkling grubs from dead wood with a cactus spine, an osprey rises from the water with a newly caught fish in its talons, and a monkfish dangles its "lure" to entice its prey into gulping distance. While of little use for reports, this meticulously drawn and informative survey nonetheless provides a colorful look at a variety of responses to an elemental urge. Sure to please the curious of mind, the slightly bloodthirsty of heart, and those with short attention spans.
Patricia Manning, Eastchester Public Library, NY
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
In his third book on animal behavior, author/illustrator Kitchen (Somewhere Today, 1992, etc.) highlights the eating habits of 12 animal predators. Children will learn how the killer whale may leave the sea to hunt, how the great, black-backed gull hunts on the wing, how the angler fish casts its bait, how the osprey dives, the vulture waits, the python strikes, the mongoose fights, the horned frog swallows, the octopus smothers, the spitting spider spits, the long-eared bat listens, and the woodpecker uses a tool. Each animal's unique methods of hunting and trapping are described in brief texts and illustrated with Kitchen's hyper-real paintings that leave nothing to the young imagination. While very young readers may be alarmed and frightened by the presentation, older children will welcome the unflinching candor and honesty they will find here. Kitchen minces no words. He just portrays animals doing what they do to survive, and he does it in elegant detail. (Nonfiction/Picture book. 4+) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Gr. 2-4. Sticking with the thematic approach he used in his recent And So They Build , Kitchen introduces 12 creatures, focusing this time on the startling, ingenious ways they satisfy hunger. He gives only enough information to pique interest--a bit about each animal's distribution and eating habits--and provides no sources for follow-up. But the art will round up browsers, including a few older than the target age group. Scientific precision harmonizes with an aura of fantasy in paintings that depict nature as fascinatingly vicious: a python swallows a whole gazelle, a vulture sits majestically atop its bloody dinner. Children will find themselves at once entranced and appalled, and that's an ideal atmosphere for beginning class discussion. Stephanie Zvirin
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