Booklist

If your backyard is populated with as many creatures as there are volumes in the Backyard Wildlife series, it’s time to put the house on the market. Taken in smaller doses, though, these brief, colorful volumes continue to be a solid first step to helping the youngest readers make connections between what they see and what they don’t. A quibble: the chapter headings listed in the table of contents do not appear on the later pages. That aside, the left-hand text (one or two short sentences) and right-hand photos make the books easy to navigate and understand. As you might expect, Bats has nightmare potential, with its shots of the leathery beasts swarming by the thousands and trapping insects. And there’s this: “Vampire bats drink the blood of cows, horses, and other animals.” Geese, as it turns, aren’t particularly exciting, which makes one wonder why the book doesn’t begin with the main event: fuzzy yellow goslings. Salamanders is plastered with eye-catchers, including a salamander shedding its skin, snagging a faraway fly via tongue, and losing its tail: “Bye tail!” The inquisitive cuties of Weasels are adorbs, even when stealing eggs and toting a dead rabbit bigger than they are. Start here, animal fans, and then let deeper series guide budding interest.