“Meet a varied assortment of animals and learn a brief fact about each one. There’s no question that the collage-style art here is striking. Boldly clipped animals pose in a sophisticated, modern-looking palette of desaturated primary colors. Illustrator Lundie collages with innovative papers, including weathered graph paper, cardboard, and old maps. Put together, they create a deep, satisfyingly textured feel, as when an old map becomes a cragged iceberg behind aqua waves and a languid-looking narwhal. Textually though, the book flags. One-line factoids such as ‘Leopard: I’ve got too many spots to count’ are correct but bland. There’s no overt connection among the animals, which hail from many habitats, and their labelled sounds are random—why is the readily recognized toucan presented sleeping with a generic ‘zzzz’ noise? The end falls utterly flat, with a confusing raccoon page that suddenly breaks the predictable pattern by introducing a rhetorical question and a peculiar final page featuring a reprisal of all the animals making their strangely chosen sounds: ‘Oh no! It’s all of us. What a terrible noise!’ A companion book on colors features the same lively art but the same dull, nonsensical statements (‘Pink is a pretty color’); at least the ending, which asks readers to identify all the colors, is less strained. Extra-thick cardboard pages will hold up to multiple reads. Handsome but odd.”

“Take a mini-tour around the world in this vibrantly collaged introduction to 10 different habitats. This diminutive board book covers the basics, like deserts and jungles, but also veers into less-well-traveled habitats, like “the poles” and “the skies.” On most pages, there’s the requisite representative animals and plants, such as a stylized lion in the “grasslands” or an assortment of trees in the “forest,” but in another departure, human activities (though no actual humans) are given space. There’s a page devoted to “cities,” and instead of the expected fish, “oceans” are filled with various jaunty ships. Elegantly collaged illustrations have a flat, contemporary feel to them; they are made of various textured papers in primarily matte, muted colors with a few richly colored highlights. Whether a noble deer strutting his stuff or a concerned adult tiger peeking at a precocious cub, the animals have whimsical faces and poses. While the art shines, however, the text is uneven. Repetitive exclamation points are wearing, and onomatopoeic words incorporated into the art vary from charming to confusing (“orbit!” isn’t really a sound). Most of the succinct tidbits of information, like “the poles are very icy and cold,” are clear, but some, like “the Earth is the third planet from the Sun,” are too nebulous for younger listeners to understand. Though the text sometimes stumbles, the art makes it an attractive addition to the habitat shelf. ”

“Delivering the message that nature is something that human beings are a part of, not separate from, this board book devotes its pages to facets of the natural world: a haughty buck shares the animals page with a grinning narwhal and a stunned raccoon; cephalopods drift beside a boat on the page for oceans; and children run and fly kites on a page celebrating “you.” Collage illustrations make use of maps and other found materials for their muted colors, making every page a visual feast. ”—Michelle Anne Schingler