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Leave a Message in the Sand: Poems about Giraffes, Bongos, and Other Creatures with Hooves

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Leave a Message in the Sand: Poems about Giraffes, Bongos, and Other Creatures with Hooves

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Overview

What would a boar text to a pig, a camel post on a dating site, or a goat shout from the mountaintops? In this unforgettable poetry collection, even-toed ungulates take the spotlight. Ever asked a giraffe about the clouds, read an okapi’s letter to the editor, or debated which gnu would win the race across the Serengeti? Playful poems and whimsical illustrations feature hoofed creatures from all around the world, from Siberian musk deer to African dik-diks to South American vicuñas.

Weaving together humor, scientific detail, and a poignant concern for conservation, Leave a Message in the Sand introduces readers to wild creatures with even wilder things to say.

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About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802855480
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	09/22/2020
Pages:	64
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	630L (what's this?)
Age Range:	6 - 18 Years

About the Author

Bibi Dumon Tak is the author of Soldier Bear and Mikis and the Donkey (both Eerdmans), both of which won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award. In 2018 Bibi received the Theo Thijssen Prize, the highest honor for children's authors in the Netherlands. She has previously collaborated with Annemarie van Haeringen on Scout's Heaven (Eerdmans).

Annemarie van Haeringen is the illustrator of Scout's Heaven (Eerdmans), Coco and the Little Black Dress(NorthSouth), How to Knit a Monster (Clarion), and Mr. Matisse and His Cutouts (NorthSouth). She is a three-time winner of the Golden Brush Award, given to the year's best illustrated book in the Netherlands, and has also received the award's silver honor. Visit Annemarie's website at www.anne marievanhaeringen.nl.

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Editorial Reviews

2020-06-30
In loose, mostly free-verse poems, readers learn a lot about a variety of hoofed animals.
The lesser mouse-deer, for example, is “Only 12 inches tall, / 18 inches long, / and 4.5 pounds in weight.” And the Arabian oryx “was the first (nearly) extinct animal / to be returned to the wild.” Each entry is accompanied by an illustration of the animal in question, in renderings that vary from cartoony depictions to splashy watercolors, often with a hint of the surreal. While each poem contains at least a nugget of interesting information, and many use humor (scatological or otherwise), several may find a less appreciative audience in the United States than they did in the Netherlands. The poem about the wild Bactrian camel, for example, references a harem and uses the slur “lame”; the hippopotamus entry relies in part on fatphobia for effect; and the Japanese serow’s poem opens by just throwing out a variety of Japanese words including Toyota and Sudoku. As it’s a translation, it’s hard to say exactly where these choices originate. The collection does neatly balance humor with scientific information, but poetry lovers may be daunted by the scantily leaded small type, and children who want to learn about animals are more likely to seek books with more robust nonfiction elements (though they may appreciate the factual backmatter).
Clever but of limited use. (further reading) (Picture book/poetry. 6-10)

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