NONFICTION & BIOGRAPHY - What Do You Do When Something Wants to Eat You?

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jenkins, Steve.  2001.  What Do You Do When Something Wants to Eat You? New York, Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 9780395825143 

PLOT SUMMARY

This nonfiction book is complete with 32 pages total that include colored illustrations over each animal covered. Each page introduces an animal and leads the reader to ask “How do you think the animal can protect itself?” He starts the book off with an aquatic animal and moves to land animals and then back to the water. Some of the animals included in Jenkins’ book include an octopus, a lizard, a snake, a fly, a frog, and much more! The ending of the book stops with a question for the reader, “What would you do if something wanted to eat you?”

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This nonfiction book is very captivating for young readers with its vivid illustrations using paper collages in a variety of colors to illustrate the animals. The illustrations were the first thing to catch my eye while looking at this book starting with the cover. 

Using simple vocabulary helps make this book easily understandable by young children as well as very interactive by asking the question at the end. Having each page like a mini-cliff hanger helps let the young reader think ahead what their answer may be before turning the page. This book will have the children wanting to learn even more!

Mr. Jenkins clearly did his research prior to writing and illustrating this book as his information is accurate in how animals protect themselves from predators in the wild. 

His organization did baffle me a little as he started out with an octopus, then jumped to land animals, and then back to water animals. I think the organization would flow better if he did all the water animals first, moved to the land animals, and ended with those that fly.

REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

HORN BOOK GUIDE: Jenkins has produced another marvel of cut-paper collage in this eye-catching picture book that turns a nature lesson into a guessing game. Young children will delight in first guessing, then seeing, how each of fourteen unusual animals (ranging from the glass snake to the pangolin to the bombardier beetle) avoid becoming someone else's dinner.”

 

KIRKUS: “The art of camouflage works on several levels here: Jenkins (Big and Little, 1996, etc.) cleverly conceals a factual compendium of 14 animal and insect defenses as a colorful picture book. One final question, "What would you do if something wanted to eat you?" takes readers into their own cat-and-mouse scenarios. A dashing look at natural escape routes.”

 

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: “In this absorbing tribute to nature's genius, cut-paper collages illustrate the built-in defenses of animals and insects. Using collage to represent a diverse range of critters from the leathery lizard to the airy silkmoth, Jenkins (Big and Little) artfully matches handmade papers to fur, feathers, scales and skin.” 

 

SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: “Jenkins answers the question of what different creatures do when another wants them for dinner. He identifies the animal on one page ("the bombardier beetle defends itself...") and then follows up with its defense mechanism on the next ("by shooting a mixture of hot chemicals from its rear end and into the face of an attacker").” 

 

CONNECTIONS 

• A great resource to use for a read-aloud book for early childhood.

• Science - a good book to use to introduce students to prey versus predator.

• Other books by Steve Jenkins:

• Jenkins, S. WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A TAIL LIKE THIS? 9788426133915

• Jenkins, S. THE ANIMAL BOOK. 9780547557991

• Jenkins, S. BIGGEST, STRONGEST, FASTEST. 9780395861363