What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?

1. Bibliography

Jenkins, Steve & Page, Robin. 2003. WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A TAIL LIKE THIS? Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-618-25628-8

2. Summary

What would you do with a nose like an elephant or feet like a gecko? Enter the animal world and explore how lizards squirt blood from their eyes, and crickets have ears on their knees. This book explores some strange tails, eyes, noses, ears, feet, and tails in the animal kingdom. There is a picture glossary at the back shows each animal again with an informative note elaborating on the creature's special adaptation.

3. Critical Analysis

This book will interest any animal lover through its vibrant paper-cut collages jump, crawl and swim off the page. Curiosity is peaked with a double-page spread gives the reader a snippet of an animal part from five different creatures. Each creature is then revealed on the following page along with what they do with that body part. If you still want to know more just look in the back of the book for interesting facts and information about each animal. The text of the book is anatomically informative, and the white background helps emphasize the particular feature in the illustrations. The provocative questions and answers of the text are supported by attention grabbing, stunning collage illustrations that are sure to get anyone interested in animals.

4. Awards and Review Excerpts

- AWARDS -

Charlotte Zolotow Award, 2004 Highly Commended United States
Garden State Children's Book Award, 2006 Winner Non-Fiction United States
Randolph Caldecott Medal, 2004 Honor Book United States

- REVIEW EXCERPTS -

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE review: “Edges manage to capture hair, fur, feathers, carapaces, exoskeletons, and the different textures of an animal's outside with uncannily accurate depictions. This is one of those cases where collage seems just right for the subject and its many nuances. The informational aspect of the book is further enhanced with a substantive paragraph, at the book's conclusion, of information about each of the thirty animals mentioned.”

KIRKUS review: “Visual surprises abound: a field cricket's ears are actually on its legs; a horned lizard can (and does, here) squirt blood from its eyes as a defense mechanism; in an ingenious use of page design, a five-lined skink's breakable tail enters and leaves the center gutter at different points. Capped by a systematic appendix furnishing more, and often arresting, details-"A humpback whale can be 50 feet long and weigh a ton per foot"-this array of wide eyes and open mouths will definitely have viewers responding with wide eyes and open mouths of their own.”

5. Connections

Use in science to discuss adaptations

Create your own “What would you do with…” featuring different animals

Explore the uses of the 5 senses

Use to discuss similarities and differences between creatures

Read other books by Jenkins such as Slap, Squeak, and Scatter: How Animals

Communicate