The best antidote to Cabin Fever I can think of is a book. So this month I'll post reviews of books that are sure to cure the winter blahs.
Animal Snacks
By Dawn Cusick
96 pages, ages 6 & up
Early Light Books, 2012
No, it’s not a cookbook showing how to prepare snacks for
your pets. This is a book that celebrates the diversity of things animals eat. From
birds to snakes to jellyfish to moose, Dawn Cusick details the diets of
creatures from all corners of the animal kingdom. Each page is loaded with
color photos depicting iguanas eating cactus, turtles eating sea anemones, fish
eating crabs, crabs eating coral, snails eating frog eggs … and more.
Think all birds eat the same thing? They don’t. Hummingbirds
like sweets, finches prefer seeds, bluebird nestlings feast on grubs, and gulls
go for the seafood buffet. Squid go for shrimp, geckos dine on grasshoppers,
and badgers eat just about anything.
Cusick introduces the book with a brief explanation of food
chains, defines a host of terms including “producer” and “consumer”, provides a
smorgasbord of delectable photos accompanied by minimal text. This book will have
young nature lovers browsing, grazing, and coming back for second helpings.
What inspired her to cook up this delicious feast of photos?
Dawn: One day a student asked me what starfish eat. (Dawn
teaches biology at a community college). So I went looking for a photo… and
somehow got hooked on the idea of presenting a whole book about the things
animals eat.
Archimedes: What about other books, like Animal Eggs. Do they start with photos
or with an idea?
Dawn: A little bit of both. Often when I’m doing photo research
I’ll find interesting pictures that just don’t fit with that particular project
– but I know that they might make a food story down the line. And sometimes the
books are inspired by a question. Animal
Eggs, for example, grew out of some research I was doing on the economics
of bad mating decisions in katydids.
So in that case I was inspired by the research. I started
seeing animal eggs everywhere, and that led to searches for photos which, in
turn, raised questions for additional research – such as, how many colors do
eggs come in?
Archimedes: You said you collected about a thousand photos
for this book… how do you organize them into concepts (for example: Gecko
snacks, or beetle snacks)
Dawn: I get really big index cards and fold them in half to
represent the pages. Then I map out the photos and ideas I want to illustrate.
I clip them together with a huge binder clip and carry them around with me. If
I find a cool, new photo I can pencil it in and then search for more photos as
I go along. My goal, with Animal Snacks, was to show diversity with photos of
as many different kinds of animals – and their favorite foods – as I could.
Check out other science resources at STEM Friday. Review copy provided by publisher.
Great fun to hear about the behind the scenes details of the book. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThe cover photograph is awesome.