written by Beth Fielding
(Early Light Books) 2011
Source: Review copy provided by the publisher
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Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. - Henry David Thoreau
Animal Eyes is an inviting exploration of the eyes of the animal kingdom. Author Beth Fielding starts the book by talking about human eyes. Did you realize that birds and insects do not have the gift of peripheral vision like humans have? Birds have to move their heads to see side to side while insects have to move their whole bodies. Throughout the book, we gain insight into the unique qualities of the eyes of different animals. A colossal squid has an eye bigger than a Frisbee. A frog's eyes move down into its skull and push food down to its stomach. Birds see more colors than humans and those colors are brighter. This book is full of weird and wonderful facts like these. The spectacular photographs will provoke students to ask questions and seek to do further research. Another particularly cool feature of Animal Eyes are the Test It Out experiments which prompt readers to try different tasks related to their eyes. There is also a fun quiz in the back where readers view unlabeled photographs of animal eyes and try to guess to which animal the eyes belong. Animal Eyes is the latest in a series of excellent animal books from Early Light Books that feature different body parts. Other books are Animal Tongues, Animal Tails, and Animal Ears.