Book Talk Tuesday: Books for National Wildlife Week

It's National Wildlife Week!  Celebrate animals and the important ways the affect our lives by reading one (or more!) of these great books:

  

Did you ever wonder why there are no high-flying, wall-climbing, tall-building-leaping superheroes in real life? Find out what keeps big animals (like us) from engaging in astonishing feats of strength and agility, and yet why being tiny and all-powerful might have a downside. What if you could lift fifty times your weight (hello, ant), but getting wet could kill you? Or you could soar like a bird, but a cold breeze would do you in? Whether big or small, our size defines more about us than we could ever imagine.

Flies are fast! They can hover, walk upside down, and use their lightning-quick reflexes to escape predators. But rainbow trout, slender lorises, and assassin bugs can catch them. Chimney swifts can, too. How do such diverse creatures manage to capture the same prey? Similar in structure to What Do You Do with a Tail Like This?, this eye-popping picture book introduces readers to a menagerie of animals that approach the same challenges in very different ways.

Eating is a matter of life and death, but it can also be weird, surprising, or just plain gross. Twenty-nine poems explore the unusual and sometimes gruesome eating habits of the animal world.

Kangaroos, koalas, and opossums, oh my! Most marsupials live in Australia, but a few are here in the U.S. Find out how these fascinating and unusual "other" mammals evolved and live.

In 1997, Ted and Betsy Lewin trekked into the Impenetrable Forest in Uganda to see mountain gorillas in the wild. This real-life adventure story is the amazing saga of that trip. At moments funny, exhausting, educational, and enlightening, "Gorilla Walk" is filled with the wonder of nature in general--and of this magnificent animal in particular.

Each year the desert elephants of Mali, West Africa, travel a 300-mile path to search for water. They peacefully pass through the lands of the Tuareg, Dogon, and Fulani people while following the longest migration route of any elephant in the world.  This insightful story with bold, dramatic illustrations shows how people work together to preserve the delicate balance of life in the desert and protect these magnificent elephants.

Feast your eyes on these amazing creatures before they disappear.  This stampede of wild animals, from Chinese Alligator to Grevy's Zebra, are so rare, they're all endangered.  David McLiman's bold and playful illustrations transform each letter into a work of art, graphically rendered with animal characteristics.  Scales, horns, even insect wings transform the alphabet into animated life.  Once you take this eye-opening safari, you'll never look at letters or animals with the same way again.

In this book you will learn that anteaters are always only children and nine-banded armadillos are always born as identical quadruplets. You will also learn that falcons play-hunt in the sky and that hyena cubs fight to the death. This is the perfect book for animal lovers young and old!