All Creatures Great and Small

by James Herriot  442 p.

             I loved this book. It reads like fiction, but is nonfiction. It is the first couple years James Herriot, a Scottish veterinarian, spends in his first job which is in Yorkshire England in the late 30s.
         It had chapters that made me cry, the next made me laugh, and grossed me out. It confirmed I made the right decision in not becoming a vet, but he does have some great moments with animals. Read this book! I look forward to watching the series that was on PBS in the 70s.

Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites

by Evan Dorkin (story) and Jill Thompson (art), 180 pages

A group of neighborhood dogs (and one cat) find their lazy days hanging out in each other's yards disturbed by one supernatural mystery after another.  A haunted dog house is easy enough to handle with the help of a Wise Dog; but as the situation gets progressively darker and more deadly, the gang realizes they'll have to learn some magic, themselves, if they want to survive long enough to save their neighborhood.

At first glance this may look like it's for kids, but don't be fooled.  Cute, quirky talking animals solving often supernatural crime?  Sure.  However, the forces they're up against include evil witches, involuntary werewolves, zombie roadkill, graveyard golems, and, just to keep things real, serial animal-torturers.  Creative and dark and funny and sad, this.  I hope there's another one soon, because I want to know what's behind the upsurge in dark magic as much as the endearing principals do.

The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale

By Carmen Agra Deedy, Randall Wright, and illustrated by Barry Moser, 228 pages.

This is the story of Charles Dickens' favorite inn, and the cat and mice that live there. Skilley, a street-smart alley cat, has a plan to begin a life of comfort as the mouser of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Inn, home to the best cheese in London and as a result, a multitude of mice. Skilley makes his entrance and immediately puts on a good show by catching a mouse. What the humans don't know is that it is all show and Skilley lets the mouse go immediately informing him that he has no taste for mice, but he does have an unnatural affinity for cheese. A partnership is struck which leads to an unlikely friendship. A fun story for anyone who enjoys animal tales.

"Call of the Wild" by Jack London

218 pages

Buck, part St. Bernard, part Scotch shepherd, has a pretty fantastic life as the alpha dog on the farm of a wealthy judge. He's got all the food he wants, plenty of space to roam, and people who love him. All of that changes, however, when he is stolen and sold by one of the judge's employees, who needs the money to pay off gambling debts. The Klondike Gold Rush was in motion, and sled dogs were in high demand. This causes Buck to be taken to Alaska, where he joins a crew and begins leading long, strenuous journeys across the frozen landscape.

I wish I'd read this book as a kid. As much as I enjoyed it this time, as an adult, I know I would have really been crazy about it when I was younger. It's got everything I liked back then: animals, nature, adventure, fighting. However, as I said, this is one that adults can enjoy as well. It seems like one that is great for all ages.

Squirrel Meets Chipmunk

by David Sedaris, 159 p.

I'm ashamed to admit that this is my first Dave Sedaris Experience, despite the fact that I've spent many a Christmas season reveling in the joy that is his annual reading of the story of his time as a Macy's Santa elf on NPR. But it was another reading of his work on NPR that led me to this wonderful book of short stories. And really, there's nothing like a nice bit of anthropomorphism to start off the day. Illustrations by Ian Falconer (of Olivia the Pig fame) really take the cake.

Just One Bite: 11 Animals and Their Bites at Life Size!

by Lola Schaefer. Illustrated by Geoff Waring. 32 pages.



With its large, colorful illustrations that span two-page spreads (and in the case of fold-out pages, more), this oversize picture book will fly off the shelves. Much like Steve Jenkins "Actual Size" books, Schaefer and Waring explore eleven successively larger animals and how and what they eat.


The illustrations generally provide the reader with a good sense of scale. For instance, the first two-page spread begins the journey with the common earthworm featured in a cross section of earth along with a nail, a coin, rocks and a key, as well as a small spot of brown to indicate the size of dirt the worm can consume. However, the illustrations featured on the fold-out pages might confuse some readers. Unfolding the right-hand page to discover the length of an elephant's trunk, readers must leave the spread unfolded when turning to the next page, which features the teeth of a sperm whale devouring a giant squid. The right side of this spread also opens out, so the whale's mouth takes up two unfolded double pages. The last page wraps up the exploration with a sentence about microorganisms that eventually feed on everything. The remaining unfolded portion of that page launches into more thorough examination of the eleven featured animals (and the microorganisms).

While I loved the illustrations in this picture book, the design bothered me. It is certainly a title that can be shared in preschool story time, since the text consists of about one short sentence per animal. But when the story time reader gets to the last page (with text and pictures about microorganisms) the audience will see either see the last double-page spread that features additional information, or a section of the elephant, or a section of the whale, depending on how the pages are folded. This likely won't matter to most, but I guess I'm a purest. It irritated me that I couldn't figure out how to refold the pages and make the design flow nicely.