Animal Seasons ¦ Animal Tricks

Brian Wildsmith's picture books are always superb. His animals, in particular, manage to be both naturalistic and imaginative (often funny, too) and are therefore a welcome alternative to the cartoony or the photographic. Here, Animal Seasons are evoked by a simple succession of creatures doing appropriate things. Few of these are original in themselves... squirrels gather nuts, robins hop through snow... but the short, clear text and Wildsmith's visual style make them interesting and fresh. Animal Tricks is more inventive, showing a variety of creatures doing, mainly, silly things such as a penguin lifting a rhino.

It's important for very young children to talk through the difference between what animals can really do and what is just imagined. This is perhaps a weakness in presenting these two books in what appears to be a series format. Well worth exploring, however.