Wendell Minor (Galápagos George) creates a field guide of sorts for youngest children, often drawing visual parallels between the creatures of the day and night, in breathtakingly realistic renderings. Minor's gouache and watercolor portraits endow the animals with a lifelike quality yet never slip into anthropomorphism.
The author-artist divides the opening double-page spread in half, with the sun shining on the left and the moon glowing on the right, inviting interaction: "Do you know these daytime visitors?... Do you know these starlight visitors?" then shows nearly all in detail in the succeeding pages. A "sharp-eyed red-tailed hawk" soaring by day gives way (with a turn of the page) to a double-page image of "a wide-eyed barn owl" swooping under the stars. A third spread divides day from night: on the left, a sunkissed family of cottontail rabbits, while on the right a nocturnal "pink-nosed opossum" carries her offspring on her back. Minor similarly pairs a butterfly (day) and moth (night), and a gray squirrel (day) and flying squirrel (night). He not only contrasts the looks of daytime and nighttime creatures, but also their sounds. The cardinal "welcomes the sunrise with a sweet song," while the barred owl's sounds fills the forest night ("hoo-hoo... hoo-hoo-aw"). For children who wish to know more, a fun facts section appears in the back matter.
Except for a few visual clues (a fence, a rooftop, a doorknob), there's little evidence of humans; this is nature in all its glory. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness