Eye to Eye: How Animals See the World by Steve Jenkins

Eye to Eye: How Animals See the World by Steve Jenkins. HMH Books for Young Readers, 2014. 32 pages.

• Reading Level: Picture Books, 4-8
• Recommended for: Ages 8 and up

Steve Jenkins generates interesting and stunning new nonfiction books on a regular basis. In this recent picture book, he uses his trademark collage style to illuminate the eyes of various creatures (including two different visual perspectives on each animal). Accompanying each illustration is a paragraph about that particular creature’s eye and its unique placement and function. Did you know, for instance, that a giant squid’s eye is the shape of a dinner plate? Or that a flounder has both eyes on one side of its head? Jenkins illustrates simple eyes, compound eyes, complex eyes, big eyes, little eyes, and more. This book would be near perfect were it not for Jenkins’s evolutionary tone. He freely discusses the “evolution” of the eye in addition to discussing the simple eyes that appeared millions of years ago. This is a very interesting book to read and will enhance our study of creation, but this is a book to read critically with your children rather than hand it to them to read on their own.

Overall Quality: 4

• Worldview Rating: 3
• Artistic Value: 5

Cautions: Worldview (evolution)

Categories: Science, Nonfiction, Education, Animals