Just So Stories

Hachette

SEP 27, 2023 | 9780734421371 | RRP $19.99

Imprint: Lothian Children’s Books

Sami Bayly‘s books are always something special and this new one will completely fascinate your young readers with another cavalcade of weird and wonderful creatures.

In this new natural history excursion, kiddos will discover a range of cleverly evolved creatures who can camouflage themselves by various means, for protection, luring prey, theft or even flirtation purposes.

No doubt, all will be familiar with the master of disguise, the chameleon, but who knew, this amazing reptile changes colour depending on its mood? or even according to the ambient temperature?

Then there’s the incredible stinkhorn fungus which releases a smell described as a mix between dog poo, rotting flesh and vomit – all the scents that signal food to slugs, beetles and flies – who zoom to the new cafe, only to be coated in sticky spores which they then spread to other locations. What a sneaky way to reproduce oneself!

Most Aussie students will know of bower birds, even if they’ve not actually seen one. They will likely know that the male creates his bower and adorns it with all things blue, but do they also know these birds can cleverly mimic many sounds, both natural and human-made?

Feel sorry for the cute meerkats who are repeatedly fooled by the fork-tailed drongo, who replicates the sounds of the little guys’ alarm call, starting a panic stations retreat, in order to steal their fresh lunch of scorpions. Or there’s the beautiful pink flowers – I mean orchid mantises – who impersonate flowers in order to trap insects for their brunch and many more.

Each amazing disguise will intrigue your Smalls, whether the method is smell, appearance, behaviour or location. Interspersed with factual snippets and fabulous endpapers with more info spotlights, Sami the naturalist once again inserts herself into the non-fiction narrative as she goes exploring the wild.

The last How We Came to Be featuring Surprising Sea Creatures was a huge hit with classes I visited and I can predict that this one will be as enthusiastically received. Highly recommended for your naturalists of ages from around 5 years upwards.