Review by Booklist Review
Gr. 2-5. Pallotta and Masiello, who created such popular alphabet books as The Icky Bug Alphabet Book (1990), team up in their most sophisticated offering yet. Each letter of the alphabet is represented by a beautiful, detailed oil painting of an animal's skull. In another twist, the name of the animal isn't revealed, but clues to its identity are given by highlighting various parts of the animal's skull, such as the teeth. Other clues are in the background--the skull for C lies beside a mousetrap. Also hidden in the pictures are small portraits of all of the U. S. presidents, an amusing but sometimes distracting touch. Obviously this is not meant to help kids learn their ABCs, but some children will pore over it, learning a good deal of animal science and practicing their logic skills along the way. --Susan Dove Lempke
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-4-Twenty-six mammal skulls from anteater to zebra are highlighted. Readers can see each skull, but are not told immediately to which animal it belongs. In some cases the features of the skull itself give it away, as in elephant or ram. Other times, Pallotta gives verbal clues: "A sly person can identify this skull-there are only three letters in its name" points to fox. There are also visual hints such as the mousetrap next to the cat skull and the bananas upon which the monkey skull rests. Others, such as baboon and gorilla, are particularly tough. On a spread between V and W the names of each animal featured in the alphabet are hidden among drawings of non-mammal skulls. In addition to the clues, the author works in scattered facts about skulls in general and about the individual animals. This all works pretty well, but a "hidden presidents" feature is less successful. Most illustrations include one or more U.S. presidents' faces hidden in the background or even on the skull itself. This extra feature may please kids who just love to look, but the incongruous portraits are obtrusive and detract from the cohesiveness of the theme, which is otherwise fairly appealing and effective. With little available for primary-age kids on this intriguing topic, this title is worth considering despite its flaws.-Steven Engelfried, Beaverton City Library, OR (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
This book features the skulls of various mammals, each representing a letter of the alphabet. Readers must identify the skulls by clues provided in the chatty text and static illustrations (e.g., for [cf2]M[cf1], a skull sits atop some bananas). Unfortunately, no straightforward list of answers is provided. Unfortunately, drawings of U.S. presidents are inexplicably hidden within some of the illustrations. From HORN BOOK Spring 2003, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Pallotta continues his series of scientifically oriented alphabets (The Jet Alphabet Book, 1999, etc.), with this skillfully illustrated volume focused on mammal skulls as the underlying structure. Each page shows one animal skull, with a paragraph of often humorous, always interesting text that offers information about skull anatomy, similarities and differences between mammals, and scientific "detective work." The mammal names are left for the reader to guess from clues in the text and illustrations, with some animals quite easy to guess, and others requiring much more effort from the organ encased in the human skull. Masiello's (The Flag We Love, 2000, etc.) striking paintings show each skull in a related environment (a fox skull in a henhouse, for example), with appropriate flora and fauna clues (ants crawling on an anteater skull, a bamboo stalk in the jaw of the panda bear's skull). On most pages there is another challenge for junior science detectives: skillfully hidden within the illustrations are one or more heads of the presidents (famous human skulls of a sort). Both the presidential names and the mammal names are included on an answer page, but it's left up to each reader's brainpower to match the names with the appropriate illustrations. This answer page, which also includes some nonmammal skulls, is oddly placed near the end of the alphabet rather than at the end of the volume. Touches of offbeat humor are found throughout, showing that for those who use their heads, science can be both educational and fun. (Picture book/nonfiction. 4-9)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
