Extreme Animals: The Toughest Creatures on Earth [Hardcover]

Lots of people have written about penguins, polar bears, and bacteria--but not this way! Nicola Davies has written stories about the roughest, toughest, baddest animals there are, so funny I was laughing out loud and so good I couldn't put it down.

She brings life to the dullest subjects. Is a sponge an interesting creature? It never was to me, but her account is. She says, "To be honest, even live sponges don't do much. They just sort of sit there and grow. But put one in a blender and you'll see that they do something no other animal can: pour your sponge smoothie back into its seawater home, and it will put itself back together..."

Explanations that are accurate but make sense to a non-scientist (animals with "antifreeze" in their bodies, for example) and deceptively simple illustrations by Neal Layton make this one of my new favorite books.

I love this book. It is fun to browse through (cartoon-like illustrations make it fun). But it is definitely a book chock full of information. How do seals dive so deep and not get the bends? How do frogs survive winter after being frozen like popsicles? Can an organism really survive temperatures exceeding 230 degrees or as low as absolute zero, -459 F? Not only does this little book provide these answers and explanations, it will leave the reader hungry for more mind-blowing revelations about life on this planet, and perhaps on the next. Warning: It will be difficult not to read snippets to whomever is in the room with you.

"Extreme Animals" keeps the reader under its spell from first page to last. Short segments revealing impossible survival facts are accompanied by whimsical, fun illustrations that coincide with and reinforce the text. The author jumps from topic to topic with abandon, dropping one jaw-dropping factual bombshell after another. Each turn of the page introduces a new topic, a new creature, and multiple surprises, revelations, and biological marvels that rival anything Ripley has to offer.

I like the playful, impish illustrations of Neal Layton whose pictures seem to have been drawn by a clever elementary school age artist. Layton's drawings reinforce and illustrate the text well exhibiting some slapstick and subtle humor along the way. One of my favorites is the full page featuring the Kosiest Koat Kontest with a smiling musk ox, seal otter, and bikini'd bowhead whale on the stage under the spotlights. Another full page graphic opposite text explaining how an emperor penguin doesn't lose heat from its feet illustrates the facts perfectly with a diagram of the inner workings of the penguin and an illustrated explanation of the Penguin's amazing coat of feathers. And the pic of the lab tech with a nose on the side of his face is a hoot.

Extreme Animals is a book that belongs in the classroom. It's a book that can teach vocabulary and science facts. It's a book that might kindle a love of reading, that might inspire and motivate a quest for additional knowledge. For example, the author writes of the invasive crown-of-thorns starfish that were cut into pieces, each piece growing back into a new starfish. I'm sure some readers would want to know more about these crown-of thorns starfish .