Three food chains at work—at ground level, in the air, and in the ocean.
In each picture Ladd and Anderson pose a single realistic, somewhat plasticized model in a simplified natural setting made with cut and folded paper. Printed separately on accordion-folded leaves of heavy stock and packaged together in a slipcase, the three sequences can be read through or laid out on display with equal ease. With cumulative narratives running beneath, each follows a similar course. “High in the Sky, Everyone Is Hungry,” for instance, opens with elm leaves that “turn sunshine into food” until becoming food themselves for a woolly apple aphid that in turn falls prey to a ladybug who feeds a swallow and so on for three more levels of predation, up to a great horned owl snapping up a red-tailed hawk (unlikely but at least theoretically possible). Along with brief analyses at the end, silhouettes on the back sides of the pages show other foods in each creature’s diet. Though these do convey a general idea of how food chains work, it’s at best a bland and intellectualized one as, topic and the use of such words as “CHOMP!” and “GULP!” notwithstanding, predators and prey only appear in separate scenes, and there is no actual eating on view.
A stylish showcase for the artists, but the lack of connection between pictures and plotlines will limit its interest for younger audiences. (Informational board book. 5-7)