What Do You Do with a Tail Like This?: A Caldecott Honor Award Winner

by Steve Jenkins, Robin Page

Overview

A nose for digging? Ears for seeing? Eyes that squirt blood? Explore the many amazing things animals can do with their ears, eyes, mouths, noses, feet, and tails in this interactive guessing book, beautifully illustrated in cut-paper collage, which was awarded a Caldecott Honor.

This title has been selected as a Common Core Text Exemplar (Grades K-1, Read Aloud Informational Text).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547772929
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/15/2009
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
Lexile:	510L (what's this?)
File size:	16 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 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.

Robin Page has worked on numerous bestselling and award-winning titles, including Caldecott Honoree What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Jenkins, this time in collaboration with his wife, has created yet another eye-opening book.” School Library Journal, Starred

“…this array of wide eyes and open mouths will definitely have viewers responding with wide eyes and open mouths of their own.” Kirkus Reviews, Starred

“This is a striking, thoughtfully created book with intriguing facts made more memorable through dynamic art.” Booklist, ALA, Starred Review

“Jenkin’s cut–paper collage illustrations are, as usual, ingenious and remarkable in their clarity, their several components neatly articulating the anatomy of their subjects.” The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

“Steve Jenkins contributes another artistically wrought, imaginatively conceived look at the natural world.” Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

Steve Jenkins contributes another artistically wrought, imaginatively conceived look at the natural world. What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? by Jenkins and wife Robin Page, stages a guessing game. Illustrated with Jenkins's trademark cut-paper art, one spread will show animals' tails (or noses, ears, etc.) as text asks variations of the titular question; turn the page, and the whole bodies of the animals are shown as answers are supplied ("If you're a lizard, you break off your tail to get away"; "If you're a scorpion, your tail can give a nasty sting"). Four pages of illustrated endnotes deliver meaty profiles of the 30 featured creatures. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

K-Gr 4-Colorful cut-paper collages provide glimpses of the noses, ears, tails, eyes, mouths, and feet of different creatures, showing that each one uses these body parts in a unique and fascinating manner. Combining a guessing game with factual tidbits, the text offers an attention-grabbing introduction to animal physiology. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Not only does Jenkins (Life on Earth, 2002, etc.) again display a genius for creating paper-collage wildlife portraits with astonishingly realistic skin, fur, and feathers, but here on alternate spreads he zooms in for equally lifelike close-ups of ears, eyes, noses, mouths, feet, and tails. Five examples of each organ thrusting in from beyond the pages' edges for each "What do you do" question precede spreads in which the point of view pulls back to show the whole animal, with a short accompanying caption. Visual surprises abound: a field cricket's ears are actually on its legs; a horned lizard can (and does, here) squirt blood from its eyes as a defense mechanism; in an ingenious use of page design, a five-lined skink's breakable tail enters and leaves the center gutter at different points. Capped by a systematic appendix furnishing more, and often arresting, details-"A humpback whale can be 50 feet long and weigh a ton per foot"-this array of wide eyes and open mouths will definitely have viewers responding with wide eyes and open mouths of their own. (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-9)

Kirkus Reviews

Jenkin’s cut-paper collage illustrations are, as usual, ingenious and remarkable in their clarity, their several components neatly articulating the anatomy of their subjects.

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

This is a striking, thoughtfully created book with intriguing facts made more memorable through dynamic art.

Booklist (starred review)

Jenkins, this time in collaboration with his wife, has created yet another eye-opening book.” — School Library Journal (starred review)

"This array of wide eyes and open mouths will definitely have viewers responding with wide eyes and open mouths of their own.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“This is a striking, thoughtfully created book with intriguing facts made more memorable through dynamic art.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Jenkin’s cut-paper collage illustrations are, as usual, ingenious and remarkable in their clarity, their several components neatly articulating the anatomy of their subjects.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

“Steve Jenkins contributes another artistically wrought, imaginatively conceived look at the natural world.” — Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher