What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? is a marvelous non-fiction Caldecott Honor book where the reader is invited to guess which animal each nose, tail, eye, foot, mouth, or ear belongs to and how the special feature is used.
The book begins with an explanation that “Animals use their noses, ears, tails, eyes, mouth and feet in very different ways.” A double page spread shows a group of noses that vary in shape, size, and color. The illustrations are marvelous works of collage. The next page shows the entire animals and the reader learns that the noses belong to a platypus, hyena, elephant, mole and alligator. The accompanying text explains that platypuses use their noses to dig in the mud, alligators breathe through their nose while hiding in the water, and elephants can use their noses to give themselves a bath.
The next page shows five animal ears. The reader learns that bats “see” with their ears, jackrabbits use ears to keep cool, and crickets hear with ears that are on their knees. The page on tails covers skunks, lizards, scorpions, and monkeys. On the pages with eyes, the reader learns that chameleons can see two ways at once, and that horned lizards squirt blood out their eyes, and that bush babies have large eyes so they can see clearly at night.
The book continues with five animal feet and mouths, including the water strider bug who can walk on water, the geckco who has sticky enough feet to walk on the ceiling, the pelican who uses his mouth to scoop up food, and the archerfish who catches insects by shooting them down with a stream of water.
The back of the book has more information on each animal including interesting facts. I learned that crickets chirp faster the warmer the temperature. And that if count the number of cricket chirps in fifteen seconds and add 40 that this gives a fairly accurate temperature reading in degrees Fahrenheit.
I recommend this book for preschool and young elementary aged children, particularly those who are interested in animals. I love that the reader gets to guess the animals and to guess how they use certain features. This guessing keeps young children interested and even intrigues much older readers.
Also See:
Do You Have a Hat? – Eileen Spinelli
Spider Watching – Vivian French
I’m as Quick as a Cricket and The Very Quiet Cricket