What at first appears to be a book of simple rhymes and arresting acrylic paintings of spotted creatures turns out to be a fascinating nature study.
Susan Stockdale starts with something easily recognizable: a butterfly. But its "Eyespots" pattern (which potential predators mistake as the eyes of a larger creature) may not be so familiar: It belongs to the buckeye butterfly, found in the Caribbean, Mexico and southern U.S., according to Stockdale's endnotes. The author-artist continues to balance the familiar (ladybugs, chipmunks, cheetahs) and the unfamiliar (the Montezuma Quail, the nudibranch sea slug, the Helmeted Guineafowl), and to reveal unusual members of familiar species, such as the flamingo tongue snail. The carefully arranged juxtaposition of colors, patterns and angles speak to Stockdale's background as a textile designer. The black-and-white polka-dot back and cornflower-blue-spotted snout of a blue boxfish (native to the Indian and Pacific oceans) swimming downward through spotted sea plants, pick up on the coloring of the blue poison dart frog, moving upward in parallel on the opposite page. A double-page spread of a "charging" cheetah accentuates its speed, while a double-page image of "creeping slugs" shows off the colorful coral, sponges and anemones that provide its diet. Children will savor the image of an anaconda ("Spots on snakes") that fills an entire frame.
Endpapers that tease to a jaguar ("way up high") stalking a chipmunk ("on the ground"), a matching game of magnified spots to its animal, plus detailed notes about habitat and class (e.g., mammal, fish, insect, bird, etc.) make this a complete package. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness