Voices from the Wild: An Animal Sensagoria

From Publishers Weekly
In this grand chorus of one-upmanship, 25 wild animals vaunt their unique senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch. Addressing an anonymous painter, each beast has one poem in which to persuade the artist to present its case to an unspecified "Them." The vulture, for example, pleads, "You can show Them through your painting,/ How I live on sight and wit." The cougar trumps, "Watch my tail sway, that's the secret./ Show it steer me like an arrow,/ Show it guide me through the air." After each section ("Sight," "Smell"), the framing narrator turns to the reader to point out humans' comparative limitations in a series of rhetorical questions: "What of humans? What's the reason/ That we've not been featured here?" The format, which is unusually elongated, permits Parker to supply oversized, primarily vertical portraits of each animal, rendered in a hyper-realistic style. But while Bouchard casts the painter as mediator between wildlife and humans, it is the poet's rhythmic, quietly urging voice that empowers the art. Although the book's length may try the attention span of young readers, it lends itself?despite some loss in momentum?to partial readings. An illustrated appendix provides more information about the animals. Ages 6-up. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 3^-5, younger for reading aloud. In this unusual collection of poems, Bouchard describes how animals use their senses to survive in the wild. The book is divided into five sections--sight, smell, touch, hearing, taste. Each section features five animals relating, in first person, the special ways the particular sense helps them hunt, avoid predators, and care for their young. Bouchard uses the first-person style quite effectively, and he avoids flowery language and abstractions in favor of simple descriptions and concrete images as the animals tell their stories. A finely detailed, lifelike painting of the animal accompanies each poem, and five summary pages, each one keyed to a section, feature short paragraphs about the animals. This attractive, well-designed volume will be useful in science instruction as well as in many areas of language arts. Lauren Peterson

Card catalog description
A collection of poems, each one focusing on an animal in the wild and the sense (sight, smell, touch, hearing, or taste) most important to its survival.


Buy from Amazon     Compare Prices

In this grand chorus of one-upmanship, 25 wild animals vaunt their unique senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch. Addressing an anonymous painter, each beast has one poem in which to persuade the artist to present its case to an unspecified "Them." The vulture, for example, pleads, "You can show Them through your painting,/ How I live on sight and wit." The cougar trumps, "Watch my tail sway, that's the secret./ Show it steer me like an arrow,/ Show it guide me through the air." After each section ("Sight," "Smell"), the framing narrator turns to the reader to point out humans' comparative limitations in a series of rhetorical questions: "What of humans? What's the reason/ That we've not been featured here?" The format, which is unusually elongated, permits Parker to supply oversized, primarily vertical portraits of each animal, rendered in a hyper-realistic style. But while Bouchard casts the painter as mediator between wildlife and humans, it is the poet's rhythmic, quietly urging voice that empowers the art. Although the book's length may try the attention span of young readers, it lends itself-despite some loss in momentum-to partial readings. An illustrated appendix provides more information about the animals. Ages 6-up. (Oct.)


Buy from Barnes & Noble     Compare Prices