Malcolm Penny

This book offers an informative overview of the diverse ways that animals reproduce. Intended for students of middle school and high school age, it contains descriptive text supplemented on each page with color photographs, drawings, and diagrams. Among the topics included are the following: where babies (sic) come from; asexual reproduction; genes, the "vital messengers"; attracting a mate; reproduction outside the body; reproduction inside the body; and the genetics of being male and female. Particular groups of animals are featured, including insects, frogs, reptiles & birds, and of course, the live- bearing mammals. The text is accurate, and even a zoologist may find a few facts of which s/he was unaware. A glossary and index are included, along with a short list of resources where additional information can be sought.… (meer)

Learn about zebras! Okay, first off, I love zebras. The fact that my nearly-two-year-old is selecting zebra books from the non-fiction shelves of the library on her own is exciting enough, but a book on a topic that I enjoy, to boot? Awesome!

This book is really well put together. Informational and interspersed with a ton of colorful photographs, this book would be welcome on a child's shelf as a picture book and easily transferred to their reference shelf thanks to the wealth of common and uncommon knowledge used in the writing of this book. I love zebras (did I say that already?), but even I didn't know that they were closely related to rhino's and tapirs, or that Chapman's zebra can be almost completely black.

The books references the Zebras habitats, life cycles, food chains, and threats, and has a helpful glossary in the back. A beautiful, informational book for children of all ages (mamas included!).… (meer)

Basics: 1974, softcover, 160 pages, 8 color and 4 b&w plates, 73 species, no range maps

As noted inside the book, this is the first field guide to represent the birds of the Seychelles islands. An excellent introduction to the history, habitats, conservation, colonization, and evolutionary tendencies are given in the initial 47 pages.

This field guide covers the endemic and resident birds, but not all the migrants and vagrants (up to 200) that have occurred on these islands. Of the 12 plates, four of them are in black-and-white, which depict the seabirds.

Despite its age compared to recent field guides for these islands, the text is still good. It is in-depth, and offers substantial historical, distribution, habitat, and behavioral information on the endemics. Many of the birds receive full 1-2 pages of coverage, which is uncommon in a field guide.

There are better field guides (Skerrett, Sinclair), but this book holds a special place because it was the first, much of itstext is still useful and, it was written while one of its endemic birds (Aldabra Brush-Warbler) was still known to exist, having last been seen in 1983.… (meer)