Where in the Wild?: Camouflaged Creatures Concealed... and Revealed by David M. Schwartz, Yael Schy, Dwight Kuhn (Photographer)

From the Publisher

Ten creatures await, camouflaged in artful, full-page photographs, while playful poems offer clues about each animal's identity and whereabouts. Think you've spotted one? Lift one of ten gatefolds to find out. A full page of fascinating information accompanies each animal so readers can learn how nature's camouflage serves hunter and hunted alike. Why do fawns have spots during their first year of life? How did killdeer birds get their name? What makes a crab spider so good at ambushing its prey?



Recipient of the 2008 American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Book and Films Prize for Excellence in Science Books.

Named a 2008 Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12 by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the Children's Book Council (CBC)

Editor's Choice, 2007— Booklist magazine

Listed in "Lasting Connections of 2007," an annual roundup of the year's best books to tie into curriculum.
-Book Links magazine

The New York Times - Becca Zerkin

Poems on the left give clues about the animals camouflaged on the right, in spectacular photographs by Dwight Kuhn. Most of the poems are fun, bouncy rhymes…Where in the Wild? urges the reader to observe the world more closely.

Children's Literature

This is a clever book. It opens by asking readers to imagine that they are an animal trying to avoid a predator or that they are a predator trying to sneak up on a meal. Animals use color or camouflage to protect themselves or to conceal themselves. The poems describe the animal in question and the picture shows it in its natural habitat. The challenge is to find the animal before lifting the flap to reveal the answer. Once detected, lift the flaps to see if you are right and then read more about the animals, including habitats, what it eats, and many other interesting facts. There are a variety of large and small animals—a coyote, tree frog, fawn, weasel (which changes color with the seasons), moth, killdeer, crab spider, green snake (which this reviewer did not spot), flounder, and a red spotted newt. It is fun, educational, and would lend itself to a variety of uses in a classroom—poems for anytime and especially poetry month, animals studies, habitats and more. Furthermore, it is a picture book that can be used with a wide age range of students.

Kirkus Reviews

Not only do science and poetry blend nicely in this introduction to camouflage, but even sharp-eyed viewers will have trouble picking out the single small animals perched on similarly patterned backgrounds in Kuhn's nature photographs. The ten short poems that face each full-page illustration offer hints-" . . . nesting / outspread / wings of white / blend with birch bark / by day's light"-but for the impatient or less acute each spread includes a gatefold that, when opened, reveals a washed-out version of the same picture with the hiding animal highlighted, plus a leaf of illustrated commentary. Aimed at slightly more advanced readers than Noelle Oliver's Twilight Hunt (August 2007), this also features a wider range of creatures, from fawns and a coyote to a flounder and a crab spider. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)

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