Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Stereobook: Wild Animals
Illustrator: Rob Fiore , David Saccheri
Nonfiction Novelty Book
For ages 4 to 7
Chronicle Books, 2009 ISBN: 978-0811864978
We humans fill our world with sounds of all kinds. We listen to music, our cars make noises, the appliances in our homes hum and slosh, we talk, shout, cry, and sing. Sometimes we make so much noise that we don’t notice the noises wild animals make. We don’t hear the chirrup of a squirrel, the cry of a hawk, or the bird song outside our windows.
This interactive title takes children to fifteen habitats around the world, and in each one readers get to meet some interesting animals through the text, the artwork, and through sound! For example, the first double page spread takes us to a savannah in Africa. In the art we see a pride of lions having a confrontation with a herd of elephants at a water hole. We can read about lions and elephants in the text and then we can hear the growls of lions and the trumpeting sounds of elephants when we press the first button in the sounds panel.
Events from nature are brought to life in this excellent title as readers learn about and listen to a wolf pack, a kookaburra, humpback whales, gibbon apes, a flock of bats, a red-tailed hawk, elephant seals, grizzly bears, wild horses, bighorn sheep, king penguins, gorillas, wildebeest, and alligators. Each sound clip includes background noises that set the scene for the narrative and the art.
