Animal Babies by Ann O. Squire

Animal babies is a book that describes animals before they are born, how they are born (hatched or delivered live), and what the parents do after they have their baby or babies. When they talked about babies who were left to fend for themselves as soon as they were born I felt a judgment towards the parents of those animals. I assumed they were cold hearted with no feelings or emotion. I do wonder what these animals are thinking when they leave their babies to fend for themselves. Since it is so unnatural in our culture it is hard to fathom that it is normal to leave your baby as soon as it is born.

Also, I actually learned a few terms reading this book. I never knew that a baby kangaroo is called a joey. I also never knew what a precocial and an altricial were. A precocial is a newborn animal that needs little or no help from their parents. An altricial is a newborn animal that depends on their parents for food, warmth, and protection. However, most of the information I was familiar with and I think is important information for children to learn. There were a lot of words on each page and the words were big and easy to read. I would change the ending and add a conclusion or a summary. It ended with a bunch of new information and almost seemed a bit too abrupt. The pictures are very helpful and very well coordinated with the readings on each page. Every image was especially lifelike. Also, I loved the definitions as well as the index they created. A lot of questions children may have throughout the book can be answered in the back of the book. Overall, it was a very enjoyable book to read. There is a lot of useful knowledge that children can gain from reading all these neat facts in this book.