My Presentation Today Is about the Anaconda

Full of humor and fun for animal-lovers young and old!

"Hello, I'm the earthworm, and today I'm giving my talk about the anaconda."

Who needs another book by humans? All they do is make us animals super boring. They only look at things through their own eyes. Every, single, time. Human after human. Kid after kid. Class after class. YAWN!

This is a book of oral presentations given by us animals, for us animals, and about us animals. The cleaner fish will talk about his friend the shark and his sharp teeth. The zebra will get to tell you about all the black-and-white animals in the world. The mole knows everything there is to know about the daddy long-legs. The southern cassowa--yes, fox? What is it? Yes, you'll get to talk about geese. Huh? Yes, you'll get to talk about how delicious they are.

Anyway, we're giving you twenty presentations from another twenty of us, but there's a lot more crammed in. And you know what, we did talk, and there's at least one human who's OK by us -- Annemarie van Haeringen. She drew some portraits of us for this book and we gotta say, the likenesses are pretty good. Check it all out!

P R A I S E

4 STARRED REVIEWS!

★ "Humorous, charming, childlike illustrations of the animals match the off-kilter tone of the text. Rounding out this stellar package, the ending integrates the index... seamlessly and amusingly introducing young readers to how an index functions. A brilliant use of anthropomorphic animals, serving up facts and entertainment." —Kirkus (starred)

★ "The dread (or excitement) of a class presentation isn’t exclusive to young humans, as evidenced in this humorous all-dialogue collection... Irreverent text nails the mood of a classroom discussion in free fall, while mixed-media sketches offer stylish visual contrast to the comedic chaos." —Publishers Weekly (starred)

★ "Riveting...receptive readers will effortlessly absorb practical advice about researching, organizing, and delivering effective oral presentations of their own." —Booklist (starred)

★ "A send-up of the presentation formats, with classroom banter immediately recognizable to the human reader, that effectively and invitingly reveals scientific information about both the animal speakers and their subjects... Between the eye-catching art and the chatty, accessible format, this makes a breezy invite for just recently-solo readers to engage with a scientific text without being overwhelmed by jargon and overwrought details. Both teachers and parents should have this on hand to freshen up the stale class project on the animal kingdom." —Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred)