About this item

From School Library Journal Gr 2-4-Each of these title includes nine narratives about unusual animal events. The lesser-known stories, such as a bike-riding dog (Animal Tricks and Talents) and a water-squirting octopus (Animal Antics) , are mixed with more widely known tales, such as the friendship between a Owen, a hippo, and Mzee, a tortoise (Animal Friends) and Koko, the gorilla who learned sign language (Animal Tricks and Talents) . Other accounts, such as "The Frog and the Dragonfly" (Animal Friends) and "The Dancing Bear" (Animal Antics) are the result of the photographer's anthropomorphic imagination and a serendipitous encounter with an unsuspecting animal. The treatment is more matter-of-fact than Picture Window's "Animal Heroes" series, though there is some overlap (such as Scarlet the cat and Sergeant Reckless) .