Extreme Animals: The Toughest Creatures on Earth (Hardcover)

by Nicola Davies (Author), Neal Layton (Illustrator)

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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Walker Books Ltd (September 4, 2006)
• ISBN-10: 1844287343
• ISBN-13: 978-1844287345
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,755,020 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 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.

4 of 4 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.