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Top 50 Reasons to Care About Great Apes
Besides being well known for their humanlike looks and tree-climbing abilities, the great apes possess many other unique traits that make them special. Do your readers know chimpanzees use two stones as a hammer and anvil to crack nuts? Or that bonobos and chimps pout and grin to show their feelings? The great apes can learn language. Readers learn fifty fun facts about great apes that make these magnificent creatures worth saving from extinction and how they can help.
* Reviews *
These books describe how animals such as rhinos, whose overall population (25,000 plus) seems healthy enough, are threatened by serious depletions to some subspecies. Not all of the 50 reasons for the animals' peril are necessarily compelling, but the format is an effective and efficient way to organize facts about them and the dangers they face. The books vary in tone, sometimes focusing on the threat to the animal (Tigers) and sometimes on its value and talents (Great Apes). The color photographs are of a high quality, although the layout is bland and sometimes seems unfinished, particularly when one of the 50 reasons is brief and leaves too much white space on the page. Also, numerous rescue and protection agencies are mentioned sporadically but there is no comprehensive list of them. Overall, though, this is a solid series, and students might be surprised to discover so many complex and varied reasons behind the struggle to save some of the planet's most at-risk creatures., School Library Journal April 2010
RL
Grades
5-6 IL
Grades
5-12+ GRL
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