What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page won a
Caldecott Honor award in 2004. The cover art invites you into the beauty and
creativity inside this book.
This large picture book
is a walk through a world of wildlife. I love the format: it challenges the
reader to see a part and imagine the whole. That is, a two-page spread shows
only one part of five creatures, followed by a two-page spread with the big
reveal. For example, we wonder which
animals own the five noses presented in
bright, beautiful collage. The page turn uncovers the answer—they belong to a
platypus, hyena, elephant, alligator, and mole. And we read what these
creatures do with their noses! In answering “What do you do with ears like
these?” we read about the bat, jackrabbit, hippopotamus, cricket, and whale. Thirty
different creatures fill this book. And there’s a bonus! Four pages of
backmatter provide a paragraph of additional information about each one.
