Animal Ark: Celebrating our Wild World in Poetry and Pictures

by Kwame Alexander, Mary Rand Hess, Deanna Nikaido, Joel Sartore (Photographer)

Overview

A howling wolf, a stalking tiger, a playful panda, a dancing bird – pairing the stunning photography of National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore with the delicate poetry of Newbery award-winning author Kwame Alexander, this lush picture book celebrates the beauty, diversity, and fragility of the animal world.

Featuring more than 40 unique animal portraits, the pages invite kids to explore each creature's markings, textures, and attributes in stunning detail, while calling on all of us to help protect each and every one. Three picture-packed gatefolds inside showcase even more familiar and exotic species. These images are part of Sartore's lifelong project to photograph every animal in the world, with special attention given to disappearing and endangered species.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781426327681
Publisher:	National Geographic
Publication date:	02/14/2017
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	10.10(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.30(d)
Lexile:	NP (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

KWAME ALEXANDER is a poet, educator, and New York Times bestselling author of 21 books, including The Crossover, which received the 2015 John Newbery Medal for the Most Distinguished Contribution to American Literature for Children. His other recent works include Booked, Surf's Up, and He Said, She Said. He is the founder of Book-in-a-Day, a student-run publishing program that has created more than 3,000 student authors in 75 schools; and LEAP for Ghana, an international literacy project that builds libraries, trains teachers, and empowers children through literature. In 2015, Kwame served as Bank Street College of Education's first writer-in-residence.

JOEL SARTORE is the founder of the Photo Ark, a photographer, speaker, author, teacher, conservationist, National Geographic Fellow, regular contributor to National Geographic magazine. In addition to the work he has done for National Geographic, Sartore has contributed to Audubon Magazine, Geo, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, the Smithsonian magazine and numerous book projects.

Editorial Reviews

Sartore's up-close photographs of animals in need of protection…are a plea for respect—and help. So is the spare poetry that wends through them, written in a loose haiku style and emphasizing all we humans share with animals.

The New York Times Book Review - Maria Russo

01/30/2017
Sartore, founder of the Photo Ark project—which aims to photograph every animal in captivity amid threats facing many creatures across the globe—teams up with Newbery Medalist Alexander and collaborating writers Hess and Nikaido to provide an up-close look at dozens of animals, in poetry and photographs. Haiku is the form of choice for the poems, though the writers play loose with syllable counts. Most animals get their own poems (“homes of courage/ on humble backs/ this is not a race,” reads one, as four ploughshare tortoises sit side by side against a white backdrop), though some poems reference multiple creatures. At several points, full-page gatefolds expand to accommodate many more of Sartore’s photographs, as well as a multistanza poem titled “Chorus of Creatures.” Unfortunately, there’s a lingering sense of a mismatch between the scope of the project and the format of the book. The grids of images on the foldout pages hardly do justice to the striking detail in Sartore’s photos, and the discursiveness of the longer poem clashes with the brevity of the three-line poems appearing throughout. Ages 4–8. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"In their brevity and directness, poems and photographs have much in common, Alexander points out in a note in this striking collaborative book....The words cut deep: 'Remember, we are part of forever.'" — The New York Times 

"Alexander and Sartore have crafted a stunning journey through the animal kingdom...Alexander’s haiku is lively and at times deceptively light, containing lines that carry with it the staggering weight of conservation and extinction, hope and loss... VERDICT Ideal for sharing one-on-one or with a small group, this impassioned and timely call to reevaluate our relationship with nature is a must-have for poetry collections." -–School Library Journal Starred Review

"The Newbery medalist matches bursts of poetic commentary to dozens of dramatic close-ups, mostly of creatures classified as endangered or threatened... Beautiful photos, with an impact heightened... by the accompanying words." — Kirkus

"The world’s threatened species are celebrated in gorgeously hued colored photos and haiku in this engaging informational picture book... Sartore’s eye-catching photographs, accompanied by Alexander’s poetry—most notably the multistanza “Chorus of Creatures”—movingly affirms that “our actions matter” and may lead readers to endeavor to help save these endangered species." — Booklist

"Featuring more than 40 unique animal portraits, the pages invite kids to explore each creature’s markings, textures, and attributes in stunning detail, while calling on all of us to help protect each and every one." — The Children's Book Review

"Using Haiku that sometimes flow around the page, Alexander provides descriptive imagery that conveys the actions of the creatures seen in the breathtaking full-color photographs... In the notes section, the writer and photographer discuss things that we can do to keep these animals around for generations to come. This book would be an outstanding addition to a poetry collection, encouraging the reader to see that poetry can come alive." — School Library Connection

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From the Publisher

★ 03/01/2017
K-Gr 3—Opening with an earnest invitation to "see what we can save—together," Alexander and Sartore have crafted a stunning journey through the animal kingdom. The book implores readers to pause and look each animal in the eye, to soak in the majesty and diversity of nature. Alexander's haiku is lively and at times deceptively light, containing lines that carry with it the staggering weight of conservation and extinction, hope and loss: "grandfather of the hunt/FIERCE and FAST/and favored, forever?" accompanies a full-spread photo of the Malayan tiger, its gaze level with readers'. Not to worry, though—there is a bit of fun to be had, too, from the likes of an impossibly cute doe-eyed Bengal slow loris, poetry that recalls kid-friendly movement (leaps, stomps, howls), and typography that mirrors sound (for "coils of hiss," the letters float up the page). Visual epiphanies also abound: the pairing of an African leopard and the similarly spotted bobtail squid inspires a sense of unity while highlighting, in exquisite photographic detail, their unique traits. A "Chorus of Creatures" midsection directly addresses readers and urges them to consider their actions and assist in caring for wildlife. Three foldouts identify the animals featured (the photos are part of Sartore's larger Photo Ark project, which aims to photograph every captive species). VERDICT Ideal for sharing one-on-one or with a small group, this impassioned and timely call to reevaluate our relationship with nature is a must-have for poetry collections.—Della Farrell, School Library Journal

School Library Journal

2016-12-21
The Newbery medalist matches bursts of poetic commentary to dozens of dramatic close-ups, mostly of creatures classified as endangered or threatened.Drawn from National Geographic's Photo Ark project, which aims to portray examples of every creature in captivity, the photographs present vividly colored animals singly or in small groups, posed against plain white or black backgrounds. Some subjects are rendered with knife-sharp clarity and others with some softening of focus, but all are around the same relative size and display a presence as intense as their enhanced hues. Three gatefolds open up either to reveal a visual index or to expand the approximately three dozen large portraits in the main gallery with ranks of smaller, labeled images. Alexander invites viewers to compose haiku on the pictures; his own contributions are haikulike in language if not form: the three lines of "homes of courage / on humble backs / this is not a race" arc in turn over the shells of a row of ploughshare tortoises, for instance. They take lyrical flights even when their meaning is obscure, as for a pair of young pandas seen as "strong, yet gentle…black and white / championing human nature." Animals "are counting on us to help them," he writes, with more urgency than strict accuracy. Beautiful photos, with an impact heightened (sometimes to somewhat dizzying altitudes) by the accompanying words. (author's, photographer's notes) (Informational picture book/poetry. 6-12)

Kirkus Reviews

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