Litsy

Predator and Prey: a Conversation in Verse | Susannah Buhrman-Deever

pick

Natural science + poetry + picture book usually adds up to 💚, but this pick has caveats. The idea of conversations between predator & prey is great, as are the poems. Some of the watercolour & gouache illustrations are nice but others are lacklustre. The brief explanatory text for each pair is sometimes confusing. I learned stuff but wasn‘t sure that I could trust it. Better #picturebook #poetry #nature books are in the comments.

Lindy If you want excellent natural science poetry picture books, look for the author Joyce Sidman. I recommend Ubiquitous and

Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night

(edited) 4y

Lindy Another outstanding example of natural science picture book poetry is:

Lost Words

(edited) 4y

41 likes2 comments

Lindy

Predator and Prey: a Conversation in Verse | Susannah Buhrman-Deever

An example of why I feel ambivalent about this nature poetry picture book:
“Don‘t Eat Here
Bright colours, bold stripes
Warning flags, stoplights
Neon signs to advertise
Dining here would not be wise.”
Great poem, but the accompanying text “Many animals are protected by poisons” doesn‘t explain that jays are insect predators, so young readers might incorrectly deduce that monarchs & zebra longwings & blue jays are all poisonous.

34 likes

Lindy

Predator and Prey: a Conversation in Verse | Susannah Buhrman-Deever

Hot-Tempered Squirrel

I‘m hot
and bothered.
I‘m hot
under the collar.
I‘m fur-rious
F U R I O U S !
Flag waving,
I boldly scold:
“Hey, you! Get off my lawn!”

Rattlesnakes attack ground squirrels but ground squirrels do not always seem to be afraid of them.

Lindy I like this poem a lot, but the squirrel looks like a tree type, not a ground type. I even looked up the source article for this poem (in the extensive bibliography). It specifically refers to California ground squirrels, so I looked them up to see if they have bushy tails. Nope. 4y

Sace I didn't even know there were ground and tree squirrels 🙄 4y

Lindy @Sace That‘s why it‘s important for an illustrator to get things right. If you saw an accurate representation, you might notice that it‘s a squirrel with a much thinner tail than the kind you might have seen in trees (or photos or wherever). Then you would have a rough idea of two different kinds of squirrels. 4y

38 likes1 stack add3 comments