linsang

Martin Brown's Lesser Spotted Animals: The Coolest Creatures You've Never Heard Of (9781338089349, $18.99) requires good reading skills but will appeal to elementary grades interested in unusual animals and many an adult who may not have heard of the Cuban Solenodon, the Long-Tailed Dunnart, or the Banded Linsang. Readers who come to associate such animal books with color close-up photos will find these receive different embellishments in the form of drawings which are nearly cartoon-like in their animal expressions, but which add a sense of fun to the natural history surveys of why each animal is rarely seen.

Some of the expressions are magnificent, like the embarrassed Lesser Fairy Armadillo or the sneaky Banded Linsang. There is a certain amount of anthropomorphism of course but I think it is offset by the amount of factual information about each animal, their habits and habitats.