Discovering Animals

One of a quartet of trilingual books by Neepin Auger, a Cree artist, educator, and mother, Discovering Animals was originally published as a board book in 2017 and has now been reissued in a paperback format with new cover art. Each of the book’s insects, birds and mammals is treated on a single page, with the English word being followed by its (bolded) French and (italicized) Cree equivalents. The contents are organized alphabetically from “bear” to “yellow bird” with not every letter of the English alphabet being represented by a creature and with some letters having more than one representation. So, there is no “a” animal, but “bear” is accompanied by “beaver”, “buffalo” and “butterfly”.

Auger’s illustrations vary in terms of how representational they are. A “caribou” is depicted by just a cartoonish antlered head while the realistically rendered fish is obviously a rainbow trout. Despite this range, youngsters, using the book’s illustrations as a reference, would still likely be able to recognize the volume’s animals if they encountered them in the wild.

The contents of Discovering Animals are definitely a vocabulary builder as all of the book’s animals are found in the wild and, therefore, will likely be less familiar to youngsters, especially those who live in urban areas. The book’s only slight weakness is that sometimes Auger uses a general term, such as “insect”, but then illustrates it with a specific example from that animal family. In the case of “insect”, more knowledgeable youngsters will see “ladybug”. Similarly, the “yellow bird” referenced earlier will be recognized as a goldfinch by some young readers.

The final four pages Discovering Words consist of a “Pronunciation Guide” in which a thumbnail of the original animal illustration is followed by the English word and the French and Cree translations. Auger appears to assume that the book’s readers’ first language is English as the pronunciation assistance is only provided for the French and Cree words.

porcupine porc-épic kâkwa
porc ay PEEK kaakwu

The polyglot aspect of Discovering Words would make it a useful home purchase in those situations in which more than one of the book’s languages is being spoken. The book obviously has formal schooling applications as well.