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Starred review from March 15, 2025
A fascinating and accessible exploration of how animals experience the world, adapted for young readers from his bestselling adult original by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Yong. Even when creatures share the same sense, such as sight or sound, the Umwelt, or "sensory bubble," they live in may be very different. For instance, where a human hears only silence, another creature may detect sound. Some creatures can see colors in what appears to others to be darkness. Readers may decide that the broad range ofhow animals sense the same inputs is just as intriguing as thewhy. Through exploring a variety of types of senses--smell, taste, vision, color, pain, heat, touch, vibration, hearing, echolocation, and electric and magnetic field detection--this book does a bang-up job of giving readers a front-row seat to animal experiences. Well-defined vocabulary appears in "words to remember" sections at the end of chapters, and insights from experts are incorporated throughout. Mills' gorgeous illustrations, both color and black-and-white, are original to this edition and enhance the appeal and accessibility of the content. Yong reminds readers that reducing sensory pollution by protecting animals' natural sensory environments--darkness and quiet, especially--is crucial to their well-being and that learning more about animals will help us behave more empathetically. An insightful and informative look at the animal kingdom with high appeal for lovers of nature and science. (author's note, photo credits, index)(Nonfiction. 10-14)
COPYRIGHT(2025) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Starred review from April 1, 2025
Grades 5-8 *Starred Review* Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Yong brings his acclaimed best-seller to young readers. With a focus on sensory biology, the vibrantly illustrated narrative opens with the zoology concept of umwelt, the "sensory bubble" or surroundings an animal can sense or experience. In the author's adept, conversational style, the topic becomes accessible and enjoyable. Relating his own interactions with the work of scientists and researchers from around the world, Yong not only explains how animal senses work but also how their senses are tied to their survival needs. The breadth of animals and their anatomy and abilities--from bees that view the nectar centers of flowers through ultraviolet light patterns to catfish with taste buds spread all over their scale-free skin--is impressive. Yong also expands the notion of senses to consider how animals perceive pain, temperature, contact and flow, surface vibrations, echoes, and electric and magnetic fields. The chapter on pain is particularly notable for its attention to ethics in pain research. Brief, intermittent field studies from Yong's own travels, such as studying how a manatee's whiskers help it sense the flow of water around it, add more details to each section. Concluding chapters on how senses work together and how human interaction threatens animals' sensory abilities further encourage readers to think about senses and animals in new ways.
COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Starred review from May 9, 2025
Gr 4-8-Yong's young readers edition of his popular adult title is intriguing and thought-provoking. Each creature on Earth lives in its own sensory bubble, called an umwelt, and its senses are tuned to its needs. Yong describes attempting to understand another animal's umwelt as magical, and it most certainly is. Readers meet spiders who can see forward, sideways, and backward all at once, squirrels whose heart beats five times a minute in winter, and treehoppers who communicate by vibrations. Accompanying these profiles are delightful and colorful illustrations. Each chapter lists words to remember, defining new vocabulary entered in it, and "Ed's Field Notes" spotlights specific animals and their amazing senses. It ends with a call to conserve wildlife by understanding how people truly engage with their environment (not how they think they do), and a reminder that the wilderness is not distant, but in our backyards and city parks. The content is easy to understand and will hold readers' attention. VERDICT A fascinating tour through the world of animal senses, this will be popular with animal lovers and collectors of weird-but-true nature facts.-Laura Nan Hargrove
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