Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

With their trademark inquisitive wit, Davies and Layton turn to animal communication in this companion to Just the Right Size; What-s Eating You?; and other irreverent guides to the animal kingdom. While much of the material is tongue-in-cheek (baboons exchange shouts of -Wassup, cuz!- and -Hi, bro!-) Davies includes plenty of factual information. Readers will learn how animals use smell, sound, electricity, and even dramatic performance to communicate-for example, a male stinkbug taps on a leaf to create vibrations that notify a female of his presence. Animal lovers should relish the surprising insights into languages we-re just beginning to understand. Ages 8-up. (Nov.)

School Library Journal

Gr 3-6 This creative team adds to its cheeky series with this volume devoted to animal communication. Through an upbeat, conversational narrative, Davies introduces youngsters to key methods of communication (such as uniforms, smells, sounds, songs, and body language), important messages ("one of us," "danger," "keep out," "I am gorgeous," "Where are you?," etc.), why communication is important, and examples from a wide variety of animal species. In organizing her material, Davies uses headings that range from the straightforward "Long-Distance Calls" and "Where's My Baby?" to some less intuitive choices like "Simply Divine" and "Happy Families." As a result, the volume might not function quite as well as a quick reference, but the engaging prose and Layton's comical cartoons provide enough interest to tempt students and browsers into a closer reading. Layton's liberally anthropomorphized and scribbled out cartoons, which convey an active imagination and silly sense of humor, set the tone and play off the more interesting examples in the narrative. A glossary clarifies scientific terms that aren't defined in the text, and an index lists the animals and some types of signals mentioned. More detailed and lighthearted than Steve Jenkins's Slap, Squeak and Scatter (Houghton, 2001), Talk, Talk, Squawk! is entertaining and worthwhile. Jayne Damron, Farmington Community Library, MI

ALA Booklist

From the writer and illustrator of What's Eating You? (2007) and Just the Right Size (2009), this book looks at animal communication. Explaining that animals need to communicate in order to feed themselves, find shelter, mark their territory, and care for their young, Davies gives plenty of examples and sometimes relates them to human behavior. In addition to communication by sound, the discussion includes signals sent by sight, smell, vibration through earth and water, electric current, body movements, and hand signs. Clearly written, the accessible, informal text features terms such as the "Yuck! Don't eat me' signal," a click made by poisonous tiger moths to warn off bats, their potential predators. The light tone of the text is amplified in the colorful and often-comical illustrations, ink drawings with color, texture, and other elements added digitally. A glossary is appended. An appealing addition to science collections.

Horn Book

Davies presents the ways in which animals communicate through the use of color and pattern recognition, smells, sounds, and chemical exchanges; she also discusses how humans are researching all this. Her friendly tone makes the complex ideas remarkably clear and understandable, and Laytons cartoon illustrations, complete with humorous communications from the anthropomorphized creatures, neatly underscore the important scientific messages.

Kirkus Reviews

Having explored poop and parasites, survival techniques and size, Davies and Layton turn to animal communication, describing how animals send and receive messages by sound, sight, smell and touch, for a variety of purposes. A "hand"-standing panda on the title page sets the cheerful tone of this informal introduction. The author has chosen both familiar and unusual examples, often connecting the animal behavior to children's experiences in ways that almost cross the line into anthropomorphization. Fish coloration is likened to school uniforms; the superb lyrebird performs his mating song and dance on a "stage" of his own making; great bustards "look like large white balloons" as they announce "I am gorgeous." That panda-gymnast is trying to "send an extra signal--'The panda who left this message is very BIG indeed.' " Cartoonlike illustrations, almost doodles, done in ink and colored digitally, add humor to every page, even in the backmatter. They often include speech balloons demonstrating the animals' messages. (The endpapers feature animal sounds in the front, "translated" in the back.) Like other books in this series (most recently, Just the Right Size, 2009), the compact trim size, mostly one-topic-per-spread organization and tongue-in-cheek illustrations will appeal to child readers. Something to crow about. (index, glossary) (Nonfiction. 8-12)