A Llama Is Not an Alpaca: And Other Mistaken Animal Identities

by Karen Jameson, Lorna Scobie (Illustrator)

Overview

Combining scientific facts with the art of poetry, this is a humorous and educational picture book about animals that look alike.

How do you tell a llama from an alpaca, an alligator from a crocodile, or a dolphin from a porpoise? The animal kingdom is full of creatures that look so similar to others that they are often confused for each other. A Llama Is Not an Alpaca pairs rhyming animal riddles with factual responses to both teach and engage young readers as they compare and contrast features of commonly misidentified animals. How many will you get right?! 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762478781
Publisher:	Running Press Book Publishers
Publication date:	03/07/2023
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	703,877
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 11.35(h) x 0.45(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

A former teacher, Karen Jameson holds a master's degree in education. She's the author of Moon Babies, Woodland Dreams, Farm Lullaby, Where the Wee Ones Go, and Shine, among other titles. Karen has published a number of nonfiction science articles in AppleSeeds and Ask magazines. She has won a special mention picture book poetry award at the SCBWI CenCal Writer’s Day and is the recipient of the Sue Alexander Grant.

Lorna Scobie grew up in the depths of the English countryside, climbing trees and taking her rabbit for walks in the fields. She is an illustrator and designer, now based in south-east London. Growing up surrounded by nature has heavily influenced her illustrations and her work often revolves around the natural world and animal kingdom. Lorna draws every day, and always has a sketchbook close to hand when she’s out and about. She illustrates her work by hand, as she enjoys the spontaneity and also the "happy mistakes" that can happen along the way. 
 

Editorial Reviews

01/16/2023

Employing puns, rhymes, and light interactivity, Jameson and Scobie probe the features that distinguish perceived animal look-alikes. Spreads encourage debate as subjects are introduced in a quiz format (“Puffin? Penguin in the sky?/ Which seabird can really fly?”), and page turns reveal the answers with playfully explanatory prose (“Waddle, waddle! Weighing just over a pound, puffins are light enough for flight”). Comparisons vary in difficulty and range across species pairings, which include hares/rabbits, clams/oysters, frogs/toads, as well as the titular llama/alpaca. Scobie uses soft-edged, scribbly graphic techniques to showcase friendly looking species as they mingle and gaze with big googly eyes. When the motley group comes together in a final smile-filled scene, it’s to celebrate the reader’s savvy and reinforce the wildly informative fun on display. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Jameson and Scobie's partnership has generated a near-perfect nonfiction picture book with elements many young readers love: cheerful pictures saturated with color, lively rhymes and the kind of facts that are likely to stick for a lifetime. Lovely, comical illustrations pair with manageable morsels of fact in this fresh and entertaining book of mistaken animal identities and easy ways to tell them apart."—Shelf Awareness, starred review

“Employing puns, rhymes, and light interactivity, Jameson and Scobie probe the features that distinguish perceived animal look-alikes…Scobie uses soft-edged, scribbly graphic techniques to showcase friendly looking species as they mingle. When the motley group comes together in a final smile-filled scene, it’s to celebrate the reader’s savvy and reinforce the wildly informative fun on display.”—Publisher's Weekly

“A guessing game for readers who are a little hazy on the differences between turtles and tortoises, dolphins and porpoises, and other often confused animal cousins.”—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

04/01/2023

K-Gr 3—Who's who in this book about similarities of animals in and out of the wild? Readers get quizzed about what they truly know about the animals listed. "Is this a rabbit or hare with the long ears?" Animals that have similar looks and traits are set up in pairs and alongside their pictures are the differences between them. Most of these animals will be considered in the same general family, but children will love seeing what makes an alligator different from a crocodile, or a frog differ from a toad. This is a wonderful book for a wide range of children to appreciate. The text is simple enough for children who are already reading on their own to decipher or younger ones to discuss with their caregivers. VERDICT Great for class visits to the library and any children's collection.—Annmarie Braithwaite

School Library Journal

2022-12-14
A guessing game for readers who are a little hazy on the differences between turtles and tortoises, dolphins and porpoises, and other often confused animal cousins.

“Croc or gator? Be a sleuth. / Guess who grins from tooth to tooth?” Not only are several of Jameson’s supposed clues—for telling hares from rabbits, for instance, or bees from wasps and hornets—just as obscure as that one, but some of the solutions on following spreads will leave young nature detectives as perplexed as they were before. Scobie’s cartoon crocodile actually leaves multiple teeth exposed when its jaws are closed, not just the “fourth” one the author specifies. Nor, the way the illustrator angles the two side-by-side reptiles, are the differences in their snouts (another distinction Jameson mentions) visible. The rest of the presentation is similarly phoned in; it seems unlikely that even very young children will ever confuse arbitrary pairings like puffins and penguins, the titular alpaca is shown not in full but only from chin up and really looks more like a sheep than a llama, and a teaser image of a toad leaping off a lily pad (“Frog or toad now hopping in?”) is just cheating given that toads don’t actually live in ponds. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A promising premise sloppily handled. (Informational picture book. 5-7)

Kirkus Reviews