School Library Journal Review for Animal Diaries: Life Cycles

With an unusual format but conventional content, these volumes are framed as animal-observation journals from children. Several clear, bright color photos enhance each spread. Beginning with calls, egg sightings, or other indirect signs of a mating season in progress (“Today I saw two red kangaroos having a fight!”), each “notebook” tracks a typical animal’s course from birth and growth to maturity…Thought-exercise questions and study suggestions are scattered throughout the volumes, which all end with a relevant small-scale activity.