Nonfiction ~ What Do You Do With A Tail Like This?

Book Cover Photo Source, Barnes and Noble: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/What-Do-You%20Do-with-a-Tail-Like-This/Steve-Jenkins/e/9780618256280/?itm=2, accessed May 7, 2009.

Bibliography

Jenkins, Steve, and Robin Page. 2003. WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A TAIL LIKE THIS? Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0618256288

Summary

This informational picture book is made up of 5 different animal body parts (noses, ears, tails, eyes, and mouths) and how various animals use each one. The animals are presented on 2 different double page spreads, with the first being just a picture of their nose, tail, eyes, ears or mouths. The first page gives us directions on how the book should be shared, “See if you can guess which animal each part belongs to and how it is used.” This is a great way to introduce young children to how animals use their body parts differently from one another.

For the most part the animals we encounter in this book are familiar, but Jenkins has also chosen to include some such as the platypus, mole, and bush baby that are more obscure in nature. This keeps the students engaged until the very end. Also included at the end of the book are several pages that list more information about each animal introduced in the story. This is great for those students who will want to continue to study about some of these fascinating animals.

In this book we see Jenkins signature use of cut paper collage that depicts each animal in realistic form. The fur, skin and feathers are done close-up on alternating pages making them virtually lifelike in nature. The attention to detail from the mosquito feelers to the toenails on the chimpanzee make it easy for us to understand why this book was chosen as a Caldecott Honor Book.

Reviews

PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY: Steve Jenkins contributes another artistically wrought, imaginatively conceived look at the natural world. What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? by Jenkins and wife Robin Page, stages a guessing game. Illustrated with Jenkins's trademark cut-paper art, one spread will show animals' tails (or noses, ears, etc.) as text asks variations of the titular question; turn the page, and the whole bodies of the animals are shown as answers are supplied ("If you're a lizard, you break off your tail to get away"; "If you're a scorpion, your tail can give a nasty sting"). Four pages of illustrated endnotes deliver meaty profiles of the 30 featured creatures.

SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: K-Gr 4-Colorful cut-paper collages provide glimpses of the noses, ears, tails, eyes, mouths, and feet of different creatures, showing that each one uses these body parts in a unique and fascinating manner. Combining a guessing game with factual tidbits, the text offers an attention-grabbing introduction to animal physiology.

KIRKUS REVIEWS: Not only does Jenkins (Life on Earth, 2002, etc.) again display a genius for creating paper-collage wildlife portraits with astonishingly realistic skin, fur, and feathers, but here on alternate spreads he zooms in for equally lifelike close-ups of ears, eyes, noses, mouths, feet, and tails. Five examples of each organ thrusting in from beyond the pages' edges for each "What do you do" question precede spreads in which the point of view pulls back to show the whole animal, with a short accompanying caption. Visual surprises abound: a field cricket's ears are actually on its legs; a horned lizard can (and does, here) squirt blood from its eyes as a defense mechanism; in an ingenious use of page design, a five-lined skink's breakable tail enters and leaves the center gutter at different points. Capped by a systematic appendix furnishing more, and often arresting, details-"A humpback whale can be 50 feet long and weigh a ton per foot"-this array of wide eyes and open mouths will definitely have viewers responding with wide eyes and open mouths of their own. (Picture book/nonfiction. 6-9)