Deadliest!: 20 Dangerous Animals

by Steve Jenkins, Steve Jenkins (Illustrator)

Overview

What do a cape buffalo, a king cobra, and a puffer fish have in common? They're all deadly!
 
Deadliest! showcases some of the planet’s most threatening creatures. Steve Jenkins's Extreme Animals reader series explores nature's truly superlative animals with the help of illustrations, infographics, facts, and figures while detailing the astounding abilities of critters as small as a frog or as big as a whale. Each installment focuses on truly amazing and unusual animals, making these nonfiction readers accessible, informative, and fascinating.
  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781328841704
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/10/2017
Series:	Extreme Animals
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.20(d)
Age Range:	6 - 9 Years

About the Author

Steve Jenkins wrote and illustrated many nonfiction picture books for young readers, including the Caldecott Honor Book What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? His books have been called stunning, eye-popping, inventive, gorgeous, masterful, extraordinary, playful, irresistible, compelling, engaging, accessible, glorious, and informative.

Steve Jenkins wrote and illustrated many nonfiction picture books for young readers, including the Caldecott Honor Book What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? His books have been called stunning, eye-popping, inventive, gorgeous, masterful, extraordinary, playful, irresistible, compelling, engaging, accessible, glorious, and informative.

Editorial Reviews

"Jenkins’s expert cut- and torn-paper illustrations provide high visual appeal. Clean lines, careful shading, and clearly delineated body parts effectively highlight key features such as the spines of the giant silk moth caterpillar (Deadliest!) and the alligator snapping turtle’s lurelike tongue (Trickiest!). Many visuals significantly enrich a young reader’s learning experience . . . Top-notch nonfiction with high appeal for browsing and learning." –SLJ "Jenkins' talent is highlighting weird, fantastical, and, in this case, dangerous animals . . . A solid informational reader that is not at all deadly." —Kirkus —

From the Publisher

08/01/2017
Gr 2–5—Jenkins's new series highlights distinctive qualities of familiar and less common creatures, from the puffer fish's poison (Deadliest!) to the unusual hunting techniques of the stoplight loosejaw (Trickiest!). A single paragraph introduces each animal and its special features, while one or two insets add additional facts. Some of these relate directly to the "tricky" or "dangerous" theme; others add a bit of more general species data. Jenkins's expert cut- and torn-paper illustrations provide high visual appeal. Clean lines, careful shading, and clearly delineated body parts effectively highlight key features such as the spines of the giant silk moth caterpillar (Deadliest!) and the alligator snapping turtle's lurelike tongue (Trickiest!). Many visuals significantly enrich a young reader's learning experience. For example, the verbal description of the western hognose snakes "playing dead" trick is good (Trickiest!), but the side-by-side images of the animal show exactly how its appearance and actions work. Layouts are varied and uncluttered, with either one or two animals per spread. Other useful features include a range map which depicts diet samples and a size comparison graphic. In each title, a closing summary spread looks at the featured animals differently: a table in Deadliest! lists the number of human deaths caused by each, while Trickiest! groups them according to the ways each animal uses its "tricks." VERDICT Top-notch nonfiction with high appeal for browsing and learning.—Steven Engelfried, Wilsonville Public Library, OR

School Library Journal

2017-07-02
Jenkins' talent is highlighting weird, fantastical, and, in this case, dangerous animals. Each realistic collage illustration is paired with an attention-grabbing headline. More information follows in a 25- to 60-word paragraph, with the name of the animal printed in boldface type. The vocabulary may be challenging for beginning readers, but given the deliciously gruesome subject and clean design, many will persevere. An additional factoid about each animal appears in a callout. Words printed in blue (too dark to stand out the way they should) are defined in a glossary at the back. Readers quickly learn to look for the small graphic on each page that addresses the inevitable question of size, comparing large animals to an adult human man and small creatures to a human hand. A highlighted box on each spread shows the animal's range on a world map and explains where it lives and what it eats. After all the scary hype, Jenkins brings readers back to reality with a two-page table that clarifies how many people actually die each year from contact with these animals. A bibliography lists 14 titles with copyrights between 1974 and 2013 from various publishers including Jenkins' own Animal Book. Trickiest! is published simultaneously and follows the same format to introduce 19 sneaky creatures, with backmatter that sorts them by how they confuse their enemies or prey. A solid informational reader that is not at all deadly. (Informational early reader. 6-10)

Kirkus Reviews