Catching Air: Taking the Leap with Gliding Animals

by Sneed B. Collard III

Overview

*NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book* 

*Junior Library Guild Selection 2017*

Only a few dozen vertebrate animals have evolved true gliding abilities, but they include an astonishing variety of mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.

North America’s flying squirrels and Australia’s sugar gliders notwithstanding, the vast majority of them live in rainforests. Illustrated with arresting photographs, Catching Air takes us around the world to meet these animals, learn why so many gliders live in Southeast Asia, and find out why this gravity-defying ability has evolved in Draco lizards, snakes, and frogs as well as mammals. Why do gliders stop short of flying, how did bats make that final leap, and how did Homo sapiens bypass evolution to glide via wingsuits and hang gliders—or is that evolution in another guise?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780884488835
Publisher:	Tilbury House Publishers
Publication date:	05/04/2021
Series:	How Nature Works Series
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Science writer Sneed B. Collard III (Missoula, MT; www.sneedbcollardiii.com) is the author of more than 80 children’s books, including One Iguana, Two Iguanasand Catching Air. He has received the Washington Post Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award for his body of work, and his books are featured regularly in the Junior Library Guild, NSTA/CBC Outstanding Science Trade Book lists, and other best-of lists.

Editorial Reviews

"This informative book explores questions such as what adaptations in the animals’ bodies enable them to glide, why gliders throughout the world are forest dwellers, and how gliding helps them to survive...A respected science writer, Collard offers a well-researched, well-focused, and beautifully illustrated presentation of a topic seldom covered in children’s books."

Booklist - Carolyn Phelan

02/06/2017
In this addition to the How Nature Works series, Collard (Hopping Ahead of Climate Change) introduces animals that don’t technically fly but glide. Readers learn why some creatures have developed this asset (preventing injury from falling, escaping predators) and the biological characteristics (namely flaps called patagia) that enable them to soar. Photographs of squirrels, frogs, snakes, and other animals in midglide accompany Collard’s direct and informative narrative, as well as sidebars that focus on the physical attributes, habitats, and behaviors of individual species. Details about the history of gliding across millions of years provide scaffolding for readers to understand the mechanisms of evolution (“These animals probably have skeletons and muscles that, over time, could evolve a true flying capability”). It’s an intriguing and focused look at animal adaptation. Ages 6–8. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

2017-01-17
Southeast Asian Draco lizards, North American flying squirrels, and Australian sugar gliders: what do they have in common?They all glide—not fly—with the help of special flaps called patagia. With the help of many stock photos (of varying quality and focus) and some drawings and engravings, the mechanics of the gliding process are explained. The text is clear and speaks of the history of gliding animals from the 125 million-year-old fossils of "the earliest known mammalian glider, Volaticotherium antiquis" to "some astonishing new gliding animals… / …PEOPLE!" The author includes information about professionally created hang gliders and wingsuits and warns his young readers not to attempt to build their own. Leonardo da Vinci's sepia-toned design for an ornithopter, a gliding machine, illustrates this spread opposite an exciting photo of a person in a red, white, and blue wingsuit. With the round series logo (How Nature Works) used as a design element alongside photos of different sizes and focus inserted in each double-page spread, the layout is sometimes too busy, but some photos are striking. The full-page photo of the Asian Wallace's frog is a wonderful animal portrait, as is the Malaysian Draco lizard. Backmatter includes websites and a bibliography of adult books as well as a glossary. Though some of the individual animals might be found in other titles, bringing them all together as gliders here makes the book worth a look. (Nonfiction. 9-12)

Kirkus Reviews