Rating: WORTHY!
Who doesn't love baby animals? The author requests a review if the reader liked the book, and I'm happy to oblige with a positive one for this picture book, but he says such reviews will encourage him to write some more great stories. My only problem with that - while I do hope he does write some great stories for children - is that this isn't a story. It's a picture book of baby animals, and there's nothing wrong with that. Kids will love it. I did.
The animals are adorable. Even the pink snakelet looks charming, no matter what it might grow into - which reminds me that it would have been nice to know which snake this was. Most of the other animals get identified pretty well, but some are referred to in rather vague terms: the snakelet without identifying the specific snake; the tadpole without identifying which frog it is.
There's obviously some class-warfare going on here, with the mammals being identified down to the species, pretty much, but reptiles and amphibians being described in much more generic terms. Naturally in a young children's picture book, you don't really want to get deeply into scientific data down to the Latin genus and species name (although it might have been nice for adults, especially if they wanted to look up the species and teach their children more about it), but giving the common name of the species is reasonable, especially if it's a really fun name. In that way children understand that nature is complex, and that there isn't just one generic snake, or one frog.
That quibble aside, though, I was impressed that the author didn't take the easy way out and show only cuddly mammals, as all too many children's book authors do. We start with the lion, but we get an alligator next, and then a duckling, so that's three of the five major vertebrate classes right there. Later we get the frog, covering a fourth, but fish are omitted. We get a dog and a cat, which are pretty much required in a book like this(!), but we also get an insect (butterfly), which is commendable. It would have been nice to have a fish and a representative of the invertebrates (other than the insects).
My favorite, I think, is the hedgehog featured on the cover. I had pet hedgehogs when I was a kid, but there are so many cute-looking babies here that it's hard to be sure the llama or the gorilla isn't edging into first place. I recommend this book for the adorable pictures and the diversity depicted.
