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A review by pwbalto
Unusual Creatures: A Mostly Accurate Account of Some of Earth's Strangest Animals by Michael Hearst
5.0
Come for the freaky pictures, stay for the entertaining text. Boy, if I could give aspiring nonfiction writers one piece of advice, it would be that. Michael Hearst seems to have figured it out for himself. Did you know that "baby anteaters line up the stripes on their fur exactly with their mother's stripes" while riding on mama's back? Or that the DoD funded a researcher from VA Tech to go to Asia to figure out how flying snakes fly? Yup.
And witty too: "Humans can easily approach Weddell seals. The hard part is getting to Antarctica." In an otherwise (mostly) flawlessly factual entry on the Hammer-headed bat: "Hammer-headed bats are closely related to hammer-headed sharks. Both animals take pride in their ability to easily remove old, rusty nails from lumber."
I.e.: YES. For the school library, the classroom, as a gift for your son's weirdest friend, as a gift for your son's least-likely-to-read-a-book other friend.
And witty too: "Humans can easily approach Weddell seals. The hard part is getting to Antarctica." In an otherwise (mostly) flawlessly factual entry on the Hammer-headed bat: "Hammer-headed bats are closely related to hammer-headed sharks. Both animals take pride in their ability to easily remove old, rusty nails from lumber."
I.e.: YES. For the school library, the classroom, as a gift for your son's weirdest friend, as a gift for your son's least-likely-to-read-a-book other friend.