TITLE: Under Threat: An Album of Endangered Animals
BY: Martin Jenkins, illustrated by Tom Frost (Candlewick Studio, 2019), ages 9-12, 64 pages, $19.99 hardback, no eBook.
STORY: More than 10 inches wide and 13 inches tall, Under Threat is a big, great-looking book with a message. It profiles 30 animals from all around the planet whose populations have dropped so they are at risk of extinction — a depressing reality. But some of the stories are about human work that is saving them.
So this is a book about hope and consequences.
Each animal gets a two-page spread packed with information, including what is happening to it and whether its status (as of its most recent survey by BirdLife or the International Union for Conservation of Nature) is "vulnerable," "endangered" or "critically endangered."
A graphic theme based on postage stamps and their perforating-pin edges ties the album together. Frost designed a stamp for each animal, with bold graphics in a sophisticated color palette. Young artists will emulate these designs, guaranteed. Each stamp conveys the animal's common and Latin names as well as its home country, that country's currency and a sense of the relative value of the monetary units.
None of the stamps is canceled yet. That's the best part.
Read to Me is a weekly review of short books.
Style on 09/23/2019