Polar Animals

by Paul Hess

This lovely board book features animals that live in arctic regions. It has polar bears, penguins, seals, arctic fox, reindeer, walrus, arctic hare and snowy owl. Each spread has one painting featuring a single animal, and a narrow picture on the opposite margin showing the animal with others of its kind doing something typical. The penguins huddle together, the reindeer scatter to the horizon grazing, the seals turn in the water under thick ice. In addition the front and back endpages each have a double spread showing all the animals together in their respective habitats; the front spread has arctic animals and the back spread shows the ones in Antarctica (seals and penguins only). The pictures are richly painted and I love them all (except the arctic fox looks a little funny. His nose is too big). And of course my toddler's favorite animal is the walrus, whether it's the single walrus shown looming on a rock in front of the cold ocean, or the group of them all piled together resting.

Rating: 4/5 ........ 24 pages, 1998