Review by Booklist Review
Munro's latest nature-themed book invites readers to explore North American deserts and learn about their fragile ecosystems through an informative text, illustrated with pictures and maps. Each desert landscape is shown twice, featuring diurnal animals in daylight and nocturnal creatures at night. The text often comments on the effects of humans on desert ecosystems through climate change and factors such as water diversion, hunting, off-road vehicles, wildfires, pipelines, mining, and drilling for oil and gas. Children drawn to seek-and-find picture challenges will enjoy exploring the individual illustrations in detail to identify the creatures mentioned in an adjacent list. A lengthy appended section revisits each desert with "Fun Facts" and highly simplified versions of both illustrations, along with numbers indicating exactly where the animals listed can be found. The illustrations, created with acrylic and India inks, are well designed to display the varied types of plants and animals found in these deserts. The discussion concludes with suggested ways of supporting the environment rather than contributing to climate change. A welcome addition to classroom units on deserts.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Arid ecosystems harbor a variety of interdependent creatures, but these Southwestern habitats face serious pressures. Munro, whose Dive In (2020) invited readers to explore coral reefs, returns to--very--dry land with an enticing tour of several North American deserts: the Sonoran Desert, the Mojave Desert (with additional attention to Death Valley), the Great Basin Desert, the Chihuahuan Desert, and the Painted Desert. An opening map sets the stage. An introduction makes the point that though deserts are dry and often hot, they're not uninhabitable. Twelve scenes, pictured over a 24-hour period, offer readers opportunities to discover inhabitants of each desert with challenging seek-and-find puzzles. Explanatory text runs across the bottom quarter of each spread describing weather, typical plant life, some geological features, and some threats to each habitat. A small box lists the numbers and names of various creatures pictured. Readers will have to look carefully: Some are very small and may be partially concealed! The following pages provide answer keys to the search-and-finds and further information about each of the six habitats. In conclusion, Munro suggests ways readers can help these fragile habitats. Munro's acrylic paintings, outlined in ink, convey the different senses of each place and time effectively through light and color, and the creatures are recognizable though not always to scale. (This book was reviewed digitally.) A solid, geographically specific introduction to desert communities--and how we can protect them. (relevant organizations, glossary) (Informational picture book. 5-9) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
