When Elephants Listen with Their Feet: Discover Extraordinary Animal Senses

Volume XXVII / Issue 35 - May 14 / 2021
When Elephants Listen with Their Feet
When Elephants Listen with Their Feet
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When Elephants Listen with Their Feet: Discover Extraordinary Animal Senses

Author: 
Emmanuelle Grundmann
Translator: 
Erin Woods
Illustrated by: 
Clémence Dupont
Toronto, ON: Pajama Press, 2021
40 pp., hardcover, $19.95
ISBN: 
9781772781236
Grades: 
Kindergarten-grade 4
Ages: 
Ages 5-9
Review by: 
David Ward
4
Excerpt: 

Humans don’t detect a wide range of smells with our 5 million odor-detecting cells. But to dogs, which have about 230 million, the world is bursting with scent! Smells travel long distances through air and water, allowing animals to send messages to mark their territories, find partners, or locate their next meal.

African Wild dogs live on the savanna of Zimbabwe in Africa. These spotted canines are expert at hunting in groups. At dawn or dusk, a small team will go out seeking an antelope. They don’t need to see the antelope, and they don’t need to worry about staying hidden while they find it; they can pinpoint their prey by smell from up to 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) away. African wild dogs can also chase down their prey for several miles at a speed of about 50 miles (80 kilometers) per hour.

When Animals Listen with Their Feet is an enjoyable, informative text for children that manages to capture facts and curiosity at the same time. Using the senses as a framework, the author and illustrator take the reader on a journey through the wild kingdom by way of intriguing facts and images. As shown above, the text is fairly simple to read, and yet the author has not been shy to use vocabulary; pincers, predator, musk, and dissolved are a few examples. Each page contains images of creatures matched with a sense as well as a playful caption. “An all purpose trunk,” A battle of stink,” “Earth’s funniest noses” are a few examples from the section relating to the sense of smell.

The text is informative, and the images match and complement with simple, yet true to life depictions. Children who love facts and who enjoy the animal world will find this book a pleasure to read. Teachers for grades K-4 will find this a wealthy resource for research units or writing/drawing activities.

Highly Recommended
Reviewer: 

David Ward is a children’s author and educator living in British Columbia.