Making Sense: Animal Perception and Communication (Knowing Nature)

The author of The Moves Make the Man discusses the five senses--seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching--and how animals are blessed with a variety of equipment to use the senses.

Grade 5-8-A fine balance of vivid writing, thought-provoking discussion and theory, and excellent, full-color photography, including wonderfully detailed closeups. Brooks offers a comprehensive description of the five senses with examples covering the gamut of the animal world. He further explores what he considers almost a sixth sense-vibrational perception-which allows creatures to be aware of something distant. Brooks then encourages readers to look at an animal as a whole-a sum of its senses and intelligence-in order to understand better how it perceives the world and why it reacts to certain stimuli. This is an exceptional nature study that will pique readers' curiosity about the world around them. Jacci Cole's Animal Communication (Greenhaven, 1989) also looks at individual species and how they communicate. It provides in-depth background and research findings about dolphins, wolves, and chimps in a readable style, but its poor-quality photographs can not compare to this stunning volume.
Cynthia M. Sturgis, Ledding Library, Milwaukee, OR
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Compared to Predators! and Nature by Design (both 1991), this third in the award-winning novelist's Knowing Nature series shines; now, rather than distracting, the jocular informal tone engages and amuses, while Brooks expresses even complex ideas in a lucid, wonderfully accessible style (``Once you begin to pay attention, the natural world is suddenly a wildly noisy place, and behind each noise is intention''). He surveys the importance of the five senses to specific species--beginning with a provocative opener on ``Knowing'' and ending with a chapter (``Wholeness'') on integrating the senses--and offers many concrete facts about capabilities, interaction, and the rich diversity of adaptations. The result is an inspirational sampling of what's known (with somewhat less about how it's known), and of the ways scientists make new connections. Brooks explores the boundary between quantifiable behavior and animal feelings with intelligence, an open mind, and judicious circumspection (``dare we insist that the small finch chasing a large hawk away from its nest is not courageous...?''), and is sensitive to the ambiguity of a word like ``strange'' and the need for qualifiers like ``perhaps.'' It's a pity the information isn't sourced (there's a curious note thanking WNET's Nature for inspiration only). A fascinating introduction to an intriguing and significant topic. Excellent, well-placed color photos; useful, discursive glossary; brief index. (Nonfiction. 9+) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Gr. 5-8. The third volume in the author's Knowing Nature series, this concerns how animals perceive sensations and communicate with others. Organized according to the five senses, the book discusses the adaptations of the sense organs in various species as they affect the animals' behavior. In addition to considering the individual senses, it touches on the more subtle sense of awareness that comes when the five are put together. Brooks' flair for the apt analogy makes his writing more colorful and more personal than can be found in most nonfiction. Full-color photographs appear throughout the book, clearly illustrating details of animal anatomy as well as brightening the pages. This and Boys, above, make evident Brooks' versatility as a writer and the diversity of his interests. Carolyn Phelan