Meet the inch-long bumblebee bat, the smallest bat species in the world. Each left-hand page poses a question to a little bat, such as, "Bumblebee Bat, how do you see at night?" The bat answers,"I make a squeaky sound that bounces back from whatever it hits. I see by hearing." Beginning each question with the bat's memorable name heightens the pleasing sense of pattern in the text, which offers information that children can understand, but avoids overwhelming them with too many facts. Wynne, who illustrated Caroline Arnold's Super Swimmers (2007), contributes an appealing set of pictures that complement the text. The large-scale artwork, appearing on right-hand pages, shows the bat flying, feeding, escaping from a predator, entering a cave, and finally sleeping. The bumblebee bat's tiny size is apparent only when it is shown next to a bee or a butterfly. Delicate ink drawings are brightened with watercolors and colored pencils. The last spread offers a little more information about bumblebee bats.

These books offer basic information about meerkats and bumblebee bats. Each spread includes a simply worded question directed to the animal ("Little Meerkat, where do you live?") and its concise, easy-to-read answer. Lively supporting watercolor, ink, and colored-pencil illustrations manage to be both lighthearted and accurate in their representations of the animals and their habitats. Additional facts are appended.

Framed as simply phrased questions and answers in differently sized type, this interview with the world's smallest bat—at rest, about the size of a quarter, as a life-sized view on the final page attests—will fill in younger naturalists on its looks, diet, enemies ("Bumblebee Bat, what do you fear?" "I am afraid of humans and birds") and habits. Generally wearing a fixed-looking smile and facing viewers directly, the interviewee flits across twilit, precisely detailed painted scenes, posing next to a bee and a mouse for scale, hunting and chowing down on a moth and then retiring to a sleeping cave with its "brothers and sisters." Rare enough to be officially endangered, these diminutive creatures get at least a mention in most of the general introductions to bats, but they're highlighted here with a distinctive charm that's likely to linger with children. Jill C. Wheeler's photo-illustrated Bumblebee Bats (2005) is aimed at a slightly older audience. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-7)

PreS-Gr 2-Although the text in this easy picture book is mildly informative, the question-and-answer format-"Bumblebee Bat, what do you eat? I eat small insects like moths and flies"-is uninspired. The facts are ticked off in bland sentences that fail to impart any information that would make these little-known creatures seem extraordinary or worth reading about. Instead of being worked into the "story," the most interesting facts are listed at the back of the book, where they are likely to go unnoticed. The quiet pictures, done in watercolor, ink, and colored pencil, support the text, but also hold no surprises.-Martha Simpson, Stratford Library Association, CT Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.