How to Swallow a Pig: Step-by-Step Advice from the Animal Kingdom

by Steve Jenkins, Steve Jenkins (Illustrator), Robin Page

Overview

"A highly enjoyable mix of science and humor." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

Escape into the animal kingdom in this visually stunning and clever nonfiction book about animal behavior by Caldecott Honor-winning duo Steve Jenkins and Robin Page.

In the latest eye-catching dive into the kingdom of Animalia, Steve Jenkins and Robin Page reveal the skills animals use to survive in the wild in an imaginative and humorous how-to format.

With step-by-step instructions, readers learn about specific behaviors; how to catch thousands of fish like a humpback whale or how to sew up a nest like a tailorbird. This fascinating and fun illustrated nonfiction melds science, art, biology, and the environment together in a detailed and well-researched book about animals who live and survive in our world today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544313651
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/01/2015
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.20(d)
Lexile:	940L (what's this?)
Age Range:	6 - 9 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.

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 with her husband and collaborator, Steve Jenkins, including Caldecott Honor Book What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? She lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Editorial Reviews

* "Jenkins and Page present another fascinating, fun, and attractive look at the natural world." —School Library Journal, starred review "Youngsters who glory in learning animal facts will be thrilled; for those who enjoy pretending, there are inviting opportunities for imitation. Readers and listeners alike will eat this one up." —Kirkus * "Colorful, precise, and often striking against the white pages, the cut-paper collage illustrations fulfill their purpose beautifully. Fascinating facts presented with droll wit—a winning combination." —Booklist, starred review * "Numbered instructions, accompanied by Jenkins’s always excellent paper collages, demonstrate how to repel insects like a capuchin monkey, catch a meal like a crocodile, or defend oneself like an armadillo. Beneath the irreverent tone, there’s ample information about the animals’ traits and behavior...adding up to a highly enjoyable mix of science and humor. —Publishers Weekly, starred review   —

From the Publisher

2015-05-06
With tongues firmly in cheeks, a pair of animal admirers offers step-by-step instructions for engaging in some surprising animal behaviors. Tailorbirds, bowerbirds, and egrets, beavers, armadillos and crocodiles, octopuses, barn spiders, and ant lions—skillful animals from around the world are the subjects of Jenkins and Page's latest collaboration. With his customary cut-and-torn-paper images set on a plain white background, Jenkins illustrates the proper procedures for trapping fish as humpback whales do (with a bubble net), for warning other vervet monkeys of danger (with special cries for eagles, leopards, or snakes), and for cracking nuts as some crows do (let a car do it—but first you should learn to fly). Other possible activities include wooing bighorn sheep ewes with head butts, building nests out of chewed-up wood like paper wasps, and dancing over the water like western grebes. Swallowing a whole wild pig (after squeezing it to death as a python does) is the culmination. In the backmatter, a paragraph about each animal includes a thumbnail image and some further information about habitat, size, and behaviors. Youngsters who glory in learning animal facts will be thrilled; for those who enjoy pretending, there are inviting opportunities for imitation. Readers and listeners alike will eat this one up. (Informational picture book. 4-9)

Kirkus Reviews