Customer Reviews

Nic Bishop: Marsupials

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With "Marsupials" Nic Bishop continues to provide some of the best nonfiction for young readers. Although his photos for "Marsupials" aren't as breath-taking as his other titles (check out "Frogs" and/or "Spiders"), they are excellent nonetheless and capture a wide variety of these animals in numerous settings. The text is straightforward without being too simple, and provides thought-provoking details. My best guess is that this is written on a third grade reading level. So, for a child to independently read this, he would have to be an advanced first grader to a struggling fourth grader.

Bishop, Nic. Marsupials. Scholastic Inc. 2009.

A Kangaroo can run faster than a horse and a Bilby "looks like a mix-and-match puzzle. It has the ears of a rabbit, the legs of a kangaroo, the body of an aardvark, and the silky soft fur of a chinchilla." These and many other interesting details about marsupials are presented in this very appealing photo essay. The photographs are astoundingly clear and up-close: a possum's liquid brown eyes stare out of one photo and his bright pink nose looks ready to twitch. There is a beautiful crystalline shot of an elusive tree kangaroo and a very humorous shot of a mother koala bear slumbering while her Joey looks askance down at her. In an amazing double spread foldout, four poses of a gliding possum reveal it soaring with its leg flaps fully extended. A nice author's note explains his passion to study marsupials in the field and his fear for the long term survival of some of the threatened breeds; a photograph shows him out in the field with all his camera gear. The variety of these unique mammals is well presented in this attractive book - a guaranteed treat for animal lovers.

Many children learn about mammals and marsupials in school, but aren't familiar with some of the more unusual members of the group. A marsupial, who is also a mammal, is different in that when their babies are born they "are so small, they look like pink jelly beans with two little legs." The kangaroo is probably the marsupial that quickly comes to most people's minds, but how about the boodie, the Mtschie's tree kangaroo, the rufous bettong, the bilby, the fat-tailed dunnart, the quoll, the numbat and the Tasmanian devil? Yes, there really is such a thing as a Tasmanian devil!

In this amazing book we are whisked off to the continent of Australia to learn about and meet with these marvelous, but sometimes downright odd looking creatures. For example, that Tasmanian devil, whose "bloodcurdling shrieks" frightened Australia's early settlers, can wolf down "half its weight in meat in just thirty seconds." The Matschie's tree kangaroo is one of those rarely seen creatures, so rare that many people don't believe they exist. You will when you see a photograph of one. These elusive critters can actually "walk by moving one leg at a time." This stunning book will give you an armchair view of marsupials Nic Bishop took months to capture with his camera. One time he snapped a picture of a wombat only after "wriggling on [his] belly for hours!"

This was a stunning look at some of the most elusive marsupials on the Australian continent. The astounding photographs were no surprise because if you have ever read any of Nic Bishop's previous books you'll know you are in for a real treat. One of my favorites was of a sugar glider leaping from one tree to another. The background was predominantly black and the animal's "flight," captured on a pull out four page spread, was beautiful. This is the type of nonfiction that even the most reluctant reader can learn from by simply looking at the photographs. It is hard to beat Nic Bishop when it comes to this type of book, but I think he's starting to top his own work!