Just So You Know...: How to Swallow a Pig: Step-by-Step Advice from the Animal Kingdom by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

BORED?

CURIOUS?

HUNGRY?

To satisfy all of those needs (and more), Steve Jenkins provides just the right Do-It-Yourself how-to manual, with step by step instructions for, as starters, swallowing a pig.

1. Hide. (perhaps draped over the branch of a tree).

Wait.... (Here comes one now!)

3. Attack! (Lunge! Grab it with your fangs. Wrap it with your coils!)

4. Squeeze. (Hard!)

5. Swallow. (Unhinge your jaws. This takes practice!)

6. Rest. (Take a nap--for several months.)


Hairy, hoofed noshes not to your taste? Like crunchy nuts, but hate the shells?

How to Crack A Nut Like A Crow


1. First find your nut.

2. Select a perch (near a busy road).

3. Drop your nut. (where it will get run over by a car)

4. Wait for the light (and traffic stops).

5. Enjoy! (Be ready to take off fast!)

All kinds of useful skills--from spinning a web like a spider to disguising yourself like an octopus--can be mastered in five easy steps, with Steve Jenkins' and Robin Page's handy how-to-do-it, How to Swallow a Pig: Step-by-Step Advice from the Animal Kingdom (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015). With a wry take on helpful hints manuals, Jenkins and Page have created another amazing animal book with glimpses into surprisingly complex animal behaviors.

See a mimic octopus morph its familiar body shape into a facsimile of poisonous prey--a lionfish, a jellyfish, a sea snake--to outwit a big, bad barracuda. Woo a ewe with bighorn sheep, using (guess what?) their big horns to appear more studly. Watch humpback whales create a circle of bubbles as they corral whole schools of small fish, with the goal for the whales of a Big GULP! for all.

Steve Jenkin's colorful torn-paper collages create both cunningly realistic images and amazing art set off to advantage by bright white pages, while Robin Page's informational text tells how insects, mollusks, fish, reptiles, and mammals, from paper-making wasps to insect repellent-making capuchin monkeys, shape surprising ways to carry out their daily chores. Nobody does nature study for young readers better than Jenkins and Page, always with fun facts, a sly sense of humor, and eye-catching book design that go down way easier than a hairy hog. For young naturalists with inquiring minds, Page and Jenkins append a bibliography and glossary of animals with thumbnail illustrations for more information on critters covered in the text. Bravo again, Jenkins and Page!