Nonfiction for Kids Review: Beavers

Beavers (The Superpower Field Guide series) by Rachel Paloquin, illustrated by Nicholas John Firth. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018. 9780544949874. 96pp including a glossary and a list of books for further reading.

Paloquin and Firth are determined to convince young readers that beavers are amazing (they convinced me), from how these rodents chew down trees (Superpower #1: Chainsaw Teeth) to their Unstoppable Fur (power #2, which is why beaver felt hats are so popular) to how they build their dams and survive the winter and etc. There are many details in this tidy package, all arranged in a format that’s a lot of fun and easy to follow.

The art is entirely enjoyable, and the entire tone of the book makes this a worthy next step up, reading level-wise, from Elise Gravel’s Disgusting Critters series. There’s even a bit of gross content (specifically Superpower #8: Turbocharged Superstink, plus an aside on why beavers eat their poop). Plus there’s this, from the colophon: “The illustrations in this book were produced using a mixture of black ink, pencil, and wax crayon on paper, in a technique known as preseparation. For printing purposes here, the artwork was colored digitally.” I love knowing how illustrations are made!

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