Cutesy Curiosities! Cute as an Axolotl (The World of Weird Animals) by Jess Keating

Nobody doesn't like adorable animals! And while beauty (or cuteness) may be in the eye of the beholder, few young readers would contest that Jess Keating's latest animal anthology has some pretty darn cute critters.

Take her cover model, the rare and wondrous axolotl, a salamander with an adorable little shy smile, shoe-button eyes, and feathery external gills that look like perky pigtails. But the axolotl isn't just another pretty face: it has amazing abilities to regenerate--not just limbs--but to add another leg for a spare when it deems necessary, and it can also resupply itself with spine and brain parts.

And in her latest in her The World of Weird Animals series, Cute as an Axolotl: Discovering the World's Most Adorable Animals (The World of Weird Animals) (Alfred A Knopf, 2018), nature writer Jess Keating comes up with some charming and real animal faces. There's the pygmy hippo, only three feet tall, a friendly little fellow who rolls over when he's happy and wags his little tail like a puppy. Another dainty doll-faced creature is the quokka, a furry Australian member of the rodentia family with a permanent grin (and, the author warns, a tendency to bite first and ask questions later.)

Keating also cites the dwarf flying squirrel, seriously cute as a button with its fluffy fur, great big eyes, and little pink nose, and the pygmy rabbit, with short round ears and big round eyes who looks for all the world like a plush toy pal. The author also favors the little fennec fox, no more than a foot long, and gifted with large, lovely ears. And there are even more curious and cute creatures in this admittedly adorable nature book, adorned with the almost-photographic illustrations of David DeGrand, accurate but endearing, which are sure to lure kids to peruse this engaging nonfiction entry for the early elementary grades.

Jess Keating's other nature science books include What Makes a Monster?: Discovering the World's Scariest Creatures (The World of Weird Animals) and Pink Is For Blobfish: Discovering the World's Perfectly Pink Animals (The World of Weird Animals).