Very short sentences describe tasks of different working animals, including donkeys, oxen, and elephants. The lack of parallel structure and some uneven repetition is rather disorienting in an easy reader with so little text. Pencil and watercolor illustrations featuring many settings (world map appended) add a strong element of multiculturalism; final spreads show a boy and his friendly pet cat.

PreS-Gr 1 Simple text, one sentence per spread, identifies the animals and their tasks, while a full-spread illustration shows the animals at work in their environments. "Camels carry" depicts a row of camels standing with loads in an Egyptian desert underneath a washed-out blue sky. A dog herds sheep in a bright green field in New York, a reindeer pulls a sleigh in the deep snow of Norway, and an elephant in India lifts large pieces of wood. Humans fit into many of the scenes, but the animals are front and center, with the exception of the last entry of a young boy and his cat that reads, "And I care for my cat." The watercolor illustrations of the various locations and the people that inhabit them are stunningly lifelike, and a world map on the final spread shows where Lewin saw the animals. Easy enough for the very earliest readers. Laura Hunter, Mount Laurel Library, NJ

Lewin's latest book for the I Like to Read series works equally well for beginning readers and younger children. Each double-page spread carries a few words and a large, luminous painting of one or more animals at work. Their tasks are identified in brief, closely connected sentences (one per page), such as, "A donkey carries. / A donkey pulls. / A reindeer pulls. / Oxen pull." Pencil-and-watercolor artwork shows the animals in action. A refreshing change from the cartoonlike pictures in most books for beginning readers, Lewin's well-composed naturalistic illustrations have their own appeal for children. The final double-page spread carries a map of the world with numbers and a key indicating "Where Ted Saw the Animals," including a horse in Nevada, a reindeer in Norway, oxen in India, sheep in New York, donkeys in Morocco and Ireland, and a camel in Egypt. This appended feature expands the book's usefulness as a springboard for discussion. A handsome animal book for young readers.