Animachines

Reviewed: September 14, 2005
By: Debora Pearson / illustrated by Nora Hilb
Publisher: Annick Press
24 pages, $5.95

This is a book about actions, animals and machines. What’s different about it is the way it connects them. Each two page spread features a verb, like “stretch” and then the pictures on either show an animal and a machine that can do the action. In this case a giraffe and a cherry picker truck are working on opposite sides of a tall tree. Down at the foot of the page a small gnome or fairy is strrreettcchhing to reach the top of a flower, reinforcing the idea.

On a later page an elephant stands in a puddle squirting itself, while a fire truck helps it along and the gnome in the middle huddles under an umbrella.

In both cases the text simply describes what is happening in simple sentences.

It’s a clever little book for use in teaching these concepts, or just for having one with a young reader.

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