Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Crowds of Creatures
Illustrator: Fiammetta Dogi
Nonfiction Board Book
For ages 2 to 4
Creative Editions, 2017 ISBN: 978-1568463018
Most of us are familiar with a selection of collective nouns that are given to groups of animals. We knew about herds of cows, and gaggles of geese. We may even know about a murder of crows, because the collective noun for crows is such a usual and sinister one.
In this lovely little board book, beautiful pieces of artwork are paired with a wonderful rhyming text to introduce little children to six image-rich collective nouns. The collective nouns chosen for the book suit the animals that they are paired with perfectly, as they capture the nature of the animals that they are describing.
Thus we read about “A colony of ants works without rest,” which is very fitting as most ant species actually live in large colonies. Later on in the book we encounter “A cloud of bats hangs in a cave.” If you ever see a large group of bats flying in a dusky sky, you will notice that they can look very much like a cloud of smoke drifting on the breeze.
Little children will love looking at the pictures of the animals in this book, all of which are engaging and interesting.
