Wild Science: Amazing Encounters Between Animals and the People Who Study Them

<div> <i>Wild Science</i> profiles ten world-renowned animal scientists, revealing how they decided to become researchers, the stories behind their fascinating jobs, and scientific information about the animals they study. Containing beautiful full-color photos and black-and-white line drawings, <i>Wild Science</i> engages both reluctant young readers and enthusiastic young scientists with its tales of adventure from wildlife experts. The animals featured include endangered Vancouver Island marmots, grizzly bears, manatees, polar bears, and sea otters, among others. Through these pages the reader can spend a night tracking bats on a narrow ridge high in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona, trek along the beaches of Costa Rica in the footsteps of huge and powerful leatherback turtles, and free stranded whales on the beaches of coastal Newfoundland. The settings range from the farthest regions of eastern Canada to Vancouver Island, from the Arctic to Arizona, and from Florida to California. A glossary and a list of resources covering books, websites, and more are included.</div>

Grade 5-8–A fascinating look at 10 wildlife biologists and their work. Each chapter contains sections describing a field experience, biographical data on the scientist, goals set and procedures followed, and pertinent facts on the animals themselves (including classification, habitat, food, and so on). The disparate experiences include rescuing a stranded young blue whale in a Norwegian fjord, teaching a young sea otter to forage for crabs in Monterey Bay, and tracking bats in the Chiricahuas in Arizona. The readable text is conversational in tone, with frequent quotes from the scientists themselves, and is spiced with full-color photos of both animals and biologists. For those who loved Sy Montgomery's exceptional The Tarantula Scientist (Houghton, 2004) or Laurence Pringle's Elephant Woman (Atheneum, 1997), this lucid, energetic reportage will be a delight and an inspiration.–Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY
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Gr. 5-8. Like other books in the Scientists in the Field series, this title offers a thrilling view of scientists at work in the wilderness. Each chapter begins with a dramatic, you-are-there account of a day in the life of a wildlife biologist: a whale specialist saves a beached blue whale off the coast of Newfoundland; another scientist braves avalanche conditions and alpine storms to study endangered marmots. Profiles of the scientists, issues surrounding their research, and facts about the animals and their habitats follow the field stories. Miles' lively text includes visceral details of what it's really like to work outdoors--the weather, the waiting, and even what the scientists eat for snacks--and the color photos enhance the immediacy of the words, with close-ups of a grizzly's mouth, for example. There are enough facts, as well as suggested resources, to support research, but many children will want this to fuel their own fantasies of working with animals in the wild. Gillian Engberg
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