Beavers

Though its use of the term backyard is pretty broad, the Backyard Wildlife series is a solid, if subdued, introduction to the kinds of animals that could never be described as exotic or weird. This set of titles is from the lowest of five reading levels offered by the Blastoff! Readers imprint, and the simplicity of approach (usually two short sentences per page) will indeed facilitate the success of emerging readers. Curiously, although there is a table of contents, none of the chapters have the corresponding headings. That quirk aside, the clean design uses a swooping arc to connect each spread, with text on the left and a bright color photograph on the right. Beavers takes on the dam-building rodent and features nice inserts of the animal’s webbed feet and long teeth. Speaking of teeth, the marsupials in Opossums have 50 of them, which they bare when frightened. Thankfully, they’re much cuter as babies. Porcupines details the rodents’ three layers of fur and shows a postencounter tiger dealing with quills in its paws. Wolves spends much of its time on pack dynamics and its single photo of a feast manages to avoid any blood. A glossary, index, and list of further reading conclude each volume.