Extreme Animals: The Toughest Creatures on Earth [Paperback]

Nicola Davies (Author), Neal Layton (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up

"Davies’s chatty, funny text and Layton’s colorful illustrations will pull kids
into this fascinating book about survival. . . . Exciting biology for the classroom." — Booklist (starred review)

From the persevering emperor penguins of the South Pole to the brave bacteria inside bubbling volcanoes, from the hardy reptiles of the driest deserts to the squash-proof creatures of the deepest seabeds, animals have adapted to survive in conditions that would kill a human faster than you can say "coffin." Discover how they do it in this amazing natural history book from a celebrated team — and find out who wins the title of the toughest animal of them all.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 4-6–We humans are such a bunch of wimps!…we can't live without food, or water, and just a few minutes without air is enough to finish us off. Luckily, not all life is so fragile. So begins Davies's breezy, engaging, and thoroughly informative natural history of some of the most tenacious survivors on the planet. There is life everywhere on Earth, even in the bubbling volcano, the driest desert, the polar wastelands, and much of that life thrives in conditions that humans could not endure for five minutes or less. This funny and appealing little book describes who these amazing life-forms are and how they manage to survive. Simple and inviting cartoon drawings enliven the text and convey the types of extremes in an easy-to-understand manner. This book is filled with report information, but also is interesting enough to read for fun. It will pique children's curiosity and have them clamoring to learn more about these unique creatures.–Cynde Suite, Bartow County Library System, Adairsville, GA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* "We humans are such a bunch of wimps . . . all over the planet there are animals that relish the sort of conditions that would kill a human quicker than you could say 'coffin'." Davies' chatty, funny text and Layton's colorful cartoons illustrations, as playful and immediate as they were in Davies' Poop (2004), will pull kids into the fascinating book about survival. Each double-page spread makes a wealth of information accessible to kids--facts about particular mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, bacteria, and more, which thrive in habitats ranging from polar wastelands to deserts and volcanoes. Cold-blooded frogs turn themselves into "frog popsicles" by making "ice grow between all the important bits of their bodies"; sperm whales store oxygen in their blood and muscles; microorganisms called thermophiles live near volcanoes or at the bottom of the sea and eat chemicals such as sulfur and iron; and fleas can resist gravity that would break human bones. Comparisons with humans add to the fun, whether the subject is reptiles' special pee or a camel's yo-yo temperature. Exciting biology for the elementary-school classroom. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: Candlewick; Reprint edition (April 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0763641278
• ISBN-13: 978-0763641276
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 0.2 x 5.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #720,356 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fun factual read, February 28, 2007

By 

Maria Beadnell "gotlips" (NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Extreme Animals: The Toughest Creatures on Earth (Hardcover)

Lots of people have written about penguins, polar bears, and bacteria--but not this way! Nicola Davies has written stories about the roughest, toughest, baddest animals there are, so funny I was laughing out loud and so good I couldn't put it down.

She brings life to the dullest subjects. Is a sponge an interesting creature? It never was to me, but her account is. She says, "To be honest, even live sponges don't do much. They just sort of sit there and grow. But put one in a blender and you'll see that they do something no other animal can: pour your sponge smoothie back into its seawater home, and it will put itself back together..."

Explanations that are accurate but make sense to a non-scientist (animals with "antifreeze" in their bodies, for example) and deceptively simple illustrations by Neal Layton make this one of my new favorite books.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely not just a children's book, June 5, 2007

By 

Linda Kissling (NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Extreme Animals: The Toughest Creatures on Earth (Hardcover)

I love this book. It is fun to browse through (cartoon-like illustrations make it fun). But it is definitely a book chock full of information. How do seals dive so deep and not get the bends? How do frogs survive winter after being frozen like popsicles? Can an organism really survive temperatures exceeding 230 degrees or as low as absolute zero, -459 F? Not only does this little book provide these answers and explanations, it will leave the reader hungry for more mind-blowing revelations about life on this planet, and perhaps on the next. Warning: It will be difficult not to read snippets to whomever is in the room with you.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely Enjoyable, November 15, 2009

By 

Spudman (Pasadena, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Extreme Animals: The Toughest Creatures on Earth (Hardcover)

"Extreme Animals" keeps the reader under its spell from first page to last. Short segments revealing impossible survival facts are accompanied by whimsical, fun illustrations that coincide with and reinforce the text. The author jumps from topic to topic with abandon, dropping one jaw-dropping factual bombshell after another. Each turn of the page introduces a new topic, a new creature, and multiple surprises, revelations, and biological marvels that rival anything Ripley has to offer.




I like the playful, impish illustrations of Neal Layton whose pictures seem to have been drawn by a clever elementary school age artist. Layton's drawings reinforce and illustrate the text well exhibiting some slapstick and subtle humor along the way. One of my favorites is the full page featuring the Kosiest Koat Kontest with a smiling musk ox, seal otter, and bikini'd bowhead whale on the stage under the spotlights. Another full page graphic opposite text explaining how an emperor penguin doesn't lose heat from its feet illustrates the facts perfectly with a diagram of the inner workings of the penguin and an illustrated explanation of the Penguin's amazing coat of feathers. And the pic of the lab tech with a nose on the side of his face is a hoot.

Extreme Animals is a book that belongs in the classroom. It's a book that can teach vocabulary and science facts. It's a book that might kindle a love of reading, that might inspire and motivate a quest for additional knowledge. For example, the author writes of the invasive crown-of-thorns starfish that were cut into pieces, each piece growing back into a new starfish. I'm sure some readers would want to know more about these crown-of thorns starfish .