Will You Miss Us If We Go?

November 15, 2019

Gr 2-4-The newest installment in the series showcases nicely flowing rhyming text accompanied by beautiful watercolor illustrations. Each endangered animal gets a spread with a rhyme about how they interact with their environment. The text also questions what would happen if they were no longer around. The animals are depicted in their habitats and are captioned with their name and region and feature re-creations of their unique footprints. The last few pages offer rhyming stanzas to call readers to action. Front matter explains why these animals need our help and shares what people can do to engage in conservation activism. Back matter includes a glossary (for harder words) and endangered animal factoids. Some of the featured animals include the red panda, the orangutan, the tapir, and the pygmy hippo. Fourteen animals are featured overall. VERDICT A lovely addition to nonfiction collections looking to strengthen sections focusing on endangered animals.-Kristin Joy Anderson, Lewis University, Romeoville, IL

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November 1, 2019
Fourteen endangered or threatened animals highlight their plights in perky rhyme. "With a ruddy red appearance, I'm very cute. / I grow big and strong eating insects and fruit." Frequently privileging metrics over precise language or even meaning, Jaeger adds to the gallery begun in Who Will Roar If I Go? (2018) with lyrics from the orangutan (depicted by Quirk with pale orange hair and a woefully shriveled-looking arm) as well as the addax, the Eurasian lynx, the tapir, the pygmy hippo, and like rarities. Along with a blithe assurance that the ivory-billed woodpecker is extant (which is still subject to debate), the author makes some head-scratching observations. The red panda informs readers, "My feet can swivel all the way around / Which allows me to walk upside down!" and the orang states, "Our forest homes disappear each year / Due to some palm-growing racketeer." A closing section offers prose "Factoids" cast as riddles--with answers directly attached. The illustrations make a stronger case for concern, with creatures who, though looking diaphanous and placed in even more airy natural settings, gaze up at viewers with knowing or quizzical expressions as if actually asking the cogent titular question. Too many incongruities and unpacked issues to stay on track, if well meant. (glossary) (Informational picture book/poetry. 6-9)

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