What do you do with a tail like this?

September 17, 2001

"In this absorbing tribute to nature's genius, cut-paper collages illustrate the built-in defenses of animals and insects," wrote PW. Ages 4-8.

March 24, 2003
Steve Jenkins contributes another artistically wrought, imaginatively conceived look at the natural world. What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? by Jenkins and wife Robin Page, stages a guessing game. Illustrated with Jenkins's trademark cut-paper art, one spread will show animals' tails (or noses, ears, etc.) as text asks variations of the titular question; turn the page, and the whole bodies of the animals are shown as answers are supplied ("If you're a lizard, you break off your tail to get away"; "If you're a scorpion, your tail can give a nasty sting"). Four pages of illustrated endnotes deliver meaty profiles of the 30 featured creatures.