Who's Yawning Now?

by Nicki Geigert

Overview

This book is about a variety of individual wild animals and even some birds, caught yawning. Describes a few facts about each animal, where it lives, and if it is an endangered species. Also included is some information on why some animals yawn, such as when they feel stressed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781951775834
Publisher:	Readersmagnet LLC
Publication date:	08/18/2020
Pages:	42
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.11(d)
Age Range:	Up to 12 Years

About the Author

Nicki Geigert is a wildlife, landscape photographer and travel writer. She has photographed on all seven continents and her work has been featured in gallery shows, Fodor's travel guides, and coffee table books. Her goal has been to capture wildlife in their natural habitats and tell their stories. When Nicki discovered that all animals yawn, just as people do, she began to document those occasions. In doing so, she has put together a very extensive library of animals caught yawning. This book shows you just a few of those animals, their habitat, where the particular animal lives, and something about that animal. Please enjoy the book and try not to yawn. After all, yawning is contagious.

Editorial Reviews

2023-01-06
Wild animals explain why they yawn—and more about their species—in this guide by wildlife photographer Geigert.

Animals yawn for different reasons, and some animals “catch” each other’s yawns, just like humans do. On each page, Geigert offers an entry from the animal’s point of view and one photograph. At the top, a green banner provides short, engaging text designed to be read aloud to, or with, preschool readers. Most pages offer a reason behind the yawn in the photograph: “I yawn when the bugs bite me,” the dhole informs readers, then asks, “Do you yawn when you get bug bites?” Descriptions compare and contrast animal and human responses—“Does your mommy yawn also?” asks the wallaby. Young audiences will giggle at the comparisons. (The jaguar encourages readers to try to yawn with their tongues hanging out, something young readers are sure to attempt to imitate.) Below the text for young readers, the smallish photograph is accompanied by longer text for independent readers describing more details about the animal: habitat, physical characteristics and behaviors, and endangerment status (“There are over 100 species of Lemurs, and we are the most critically endangered animal in the world. We are only found in Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world”). This section varies in quality across the book; the first-person narrative is sometimes clunky, especially when Geigert offers facts that seem beyond the animal’s ken. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t suggest how young conservationists can help endangered animals. Geigert’s yawning photographs are fantastic, however, catching a camel, hippo, antelope, and more with mouths agape, so it’s a shame that the photographs aren’t larger.

A clever concept and striking photographs, but the text falls short.

Kirkus Reviews