Big as a Giant Snail: Discovering the World's Most Gigantic Animals, written by Jess Keating and illustrated by David DeGrand. Alfred A. Knopf, Penguin Random House. 2021. $23.99 ages 8 and up

 

"As the largest members of the deer family,
moose have a leg up on their smaller 
cousins. Or rather, several feet up! Some 
MOOSE tower more than ten feet tall, 
and their massive antlers can be nearly 
two yards wide."

You already are aware of two of the most gigantic animals included in this amazing new entry for The World of Weird Animals series: the moose and the giant snail. Quick! Name five more, and see if you made the right guesses once you get down to reading. I'll wait!   

As they have done so successfully before, Jess Keating and David DeGrand offer a plethora of animals that fit the bill for this book about gigantic animals. They offer clear information through careful research on a handful of such animals that will be familiar to their target audience: blue whale, polar bear, elephant seal, capybara, giant anteater, and red kangaroo. Others perhaps are not as well known: Malabar giant squirrel, cassowary, atlas moth, harpy eagle, kakapo and the goliath birdeater. 

A note for readers, before meeting any of the noted animals, allows that true size is measured in bananas (each being about six inches long). Thus, a moose is 14 bananas high, while a polar bear is 20 bananas long. It helps if a young reader has a banana at hand to do some measuring as the book is read. 

Each double page spread is designed to provide many pertinent facts. A clear and titled photo faces a factual, short paragraph, a cartoon image, an information splash that offers one distinct peculiarity, and a sidebar that provides species name, size, diet, habitat, and predators, and other threats to the animal presented. 

Back matter includes The Handy, Dandy Banana Scale which provides a comparison chart of sizes from the biggest to the smallest. Readers are invited to measure themselves using bananas and then compare themselves to the chart. Where would they fit on it? A glossary of useful words is the final entry.  

"Not all animals are scary - some are downright adorable! The KAKAPO is the world's heaviest parrot and also happens to be the only species of parrot that can't fly. But who needs flight when you've got excellent hiking, climbing, and jumping abilities?"