Best known for picture books such as How Much Is a Million? (1985) and Millions to Measure (2003), Schwartz teams up with Schy to create a science book about animal camouflage. Each double-page spread begins with a poem on the left-hand page about an unidentified, camouflaged animal. Facing it is a gatefold page with a photo of one or more animals camouflaged in their habitat and often difficult to discern in the picture. Readers opening out that page will find the same scene, mysteriously changed: the animal's surroundings have faded to create a pale, misty background, and the creature now stands out clearly. A few paragraphs of text comment on the animal and how it can hide so well in plain view. The well-crafted, short poems, varying in form from rhymed couplets to haiku to concrete verse, offer clues to the hidden animals' identities. Beautifully photographed and designed with great attention to detail, this book will intrigue and challenge children, whether they find it individually or in a classroom setting.

Not only do science and poetry blend nicely in this introduction to camouflage, but even sharp-eyed viewers will have trouble picking out the single small animals perched on similarly patterned backgrounds in Kuhn's nature photographs. The ten short poems that face each full-page illustration offer hints—" . . . nesting / outspread / wings of white / blend with birch bark / by day's light"—but for the impatient or less acute each spread includes a gatefold that, when opened, reveals a washed-out version of the same picture with the hiding animal highlighted, plus a leaf of illustrated commentary. Aimed at slightly more advanced readers than Noelle Oliver's Twilight Hunt (August 2007), this also features a wider range of creatures, from fawns and a coyote to a flounder and a crab spider. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)

Gr 2-4-Ten very different animals introduce the concept of camouflage in this handsome guessing game. "In the warm summer months, my coat is dark brown./Then as winter arrives, I don a white gown." A short-tailed weasel, or ermine, is described in the poetic lines and peers through snowy grasses in the facing picture. Visible only because of its bright eyes, the furry predator could truly "hide in full view." The combination of poetry, beautiful photography, and clear factual explanation is executed in all of its parts with economy and skill. Patient viewing usually reveals the hidden animal, though some are pretty hard to spot. Each vivid picture folds out to a new view where the background is muted with tissue and the featured creature highlighted. Here there is a short, clear commentary on the animal's life and use of camouflage. Adults will marvel at the ability of the photographer to locate these hidden denizens of day and night, forests, meadows, and ocean beds. Children will be intrigued with the familiar and lesser-known animals. Teachers will find many different uses for science and even visual-literacy units.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.