by Loran Wlodarski; illustrated by Laurie Allen Klein
Everybody loves dolphins. At least they should. They navigate by sonor and kick shark butt and eat sushi. That's one heckuva fish.
But wait, they're not fish at all. Nor is a dolphin an octopus or a sea turtle, as this book helpfully points out. Klein's whimsical drawings in colored pencils morph a dolphin named Delfina into several other animals including, quite amusingly, a pelican.
No-nonsense prose sets us straight: what dolphins eat, how they bear and raise their young, even why they're bald.
The end notes even explain why dolphins aren't really porpoises, and how they're both closely related to whales. I think this would be the perfect read before taking a kid to SeaWorld where, by the way, Klein works as the on-staff artist.
Rating: *\*\
"The porpoise-driven life"? Never stop blogging.
When I was young, a book such as this would have been beneficial to me. I don't know how long it took me to find out that a dolphin was not a fish.
Posted by: Ontario Emperor | May 17, 2006 at 04:12 PM
Glad SOMEBODY noticed that headline! Sheesh.
Posted by: Anne | May 18, 2006 at 06:27 AM