Beverly Joubert

Face to Face with Elephants
I liked this book because three main reasons. This book is an informational text and is about a person who studies elephants all over Africa. The book tells a story of how an elephant rammed the car they were in one time. The person talks about trying to be invisible and understand them. The book then goes on to talk about how elephants communicate and different stats about their size along with other interesting facts. It ends the book with what you can do to protect some elephants that are being hunted. I liked this book because it had photographic pictures taken from the wild which made me have a better understanding of what it looked like when the elephant went about its day. The use of pictures of real elephants made the story lifelike which is good for an informational text. Another thing I liked is the way that the parts of the book are broken down into a day in the life of an elephant. Also the way the text is broken down into sections like food, lifespan, special features. This allowed me to easily navigate the book and know what I am going to be reading about which I like. The third and final thing I like about the book was the message. Even though it is an informational text it ends the book with how you can help the elephants which I thought was a cool addition and made me care more about the elephants. In conclusion I liked the book because it had real pictures, easy to read, and good final message.… (more)

This is one of those large-format coffee-table books full of gorgeous photos of wildlife. It's based on three years the authors spent living among lions and buffalo in the Okavango Delta of Botswana, studying their interactions and filming. The unique thing about this area, besides that no people are allowed there (no tourists, nada) is that most of it is swampy. The lions wade and hunt and travel through water day after day. What fascinated me most was to read about how the three lion prides they studied each had their own different strategies of hunting buffalo in the water. While the pictures dominate the book, the writing is beautiful, thoughtful, even poetic and so it was just as much a delight to read through as to enjoy visually.

from the Dogear Diary… (more)