Pets and their owners appear together in a book as heartwarming as it is informative.
From our earliest beginnings, we have shared our lives with animals. Jane Drake and Ann Love explore the ties that humans and their pets have formed. With fun and fascinating facts, they address Dog People and Cat People. (Why does a cat wind around her owner's legs? She's rubbing her owner with glands on her face to say "you're mine.") They also introduce us to more unusual pets. There's Polly the parrot, who lived through the Klondike Gold Rush to be 126 years old by belting back whiskey, swearing, and biting gold miners. And, of course, there are fish and reptiles, rodents and horses, all of whom can be beloved pets. As useful as it is fun, Talking Tails is a must for children who have or want a pet.
ANN LOVE and JANE DRAKE, sisters and coauthors, have written many award-winning books for young readers, including
Cool Woods: A Trip around the World's Boreal Forest;
Snow Amazing:
Cool Facts and Warm Tales;
Trash Action: A Fresh Look at Garbage;
Sweet! The Delicious Story of Candy; and
Alien Invaders: Species That Threaten Our World. They share a lifelong interest in the environment and the wild, travel extensively, and, through their books and presentations, inspire children to be more observant of the world around them. Ann Love and Jane Drake live in the Toronto area.
BILL SLAVIN has illustrated over seventy books for children, including
The Big Book of Canada by Christopher Moore and
It's a Snap: George Eastman's First Photograph in Monica Kulling's 'Great Idea Series', biographies for the very young. He has won the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator's Award, the Blue Spruce Award, and the Zena Sutherland Award for Children's Literature, among many others. Bill Slavin lives in Millbrook, Ontario.
PRAISE FOR ALIEN INVADERS:"This is a highly relevant topic.... A good choice for science enthusiasts and non-fiction readers, this succinct, lucid text makes global ecology palpable."
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Toronto Star
PRAISE FOR SWEET!:
"... A yummy feast....
Sweet! is one tasty treat."
—
School Library Journal
