My Presentation Today Is About the Anaconda
by Bibi Dumon Tak
illustrated by Annemarie Van Haeringen
translated by Nancy Forest-Flier
Levine Querido, 2025. First published in the Netherlands in 2022. 223 pages.
Review written April 29, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
This book: Packed with information, and ever so much fun! Also the kind of book that I ordered for the library with a note: “Show to Sondy” so I could figure out if it’s nonfiction or fiction. The answer ended up being Fiction, since it’s full of talking animals. But those animals are telling you Facts! I also immediately placed the book on hold so I could read the whole thing.
Here’s how the book begins:
To Start Off…
These are oral presentations given by animals about other animals. That’s because oral presentations can really be fun, especially when they’re not being given by the human species for once. After all, humans can make presentations super boring.
Why?
Because humans only look at things through their own human eyes.
Every single time.Human after human.
Kid after kid.
Class after class.YAWN!
So it’s time to take a fresh look:
Animal after animal.
Here we go!
So what follows is a bunch of animals talking about other animals: A cleaner fish talks about the shark. A blackbird talks about the rose-ringed parakeet. A midwife toad talks about the koala. A zebra tells us about all the pure black-and-white animals. A death’s head hawkmoth talks about the squirrel monkey.
Altogether, twenty animals give presentations about other animals. And the reports are quirky, each from the perspective of the particular animal giving it, sometimes telling more about that animal than about the subject of the report.
After most presentations, there’s time for questions from the animals listening, and those are quirky and interesting, too.
Perfect for kids ready for chapter books, this is all very silly, but packed with facts at the same time.
I usually only find out about translated books after they win Batchelder Award Honor. This time, I’ve got an early favorite for this year’s winner. Find out a bunch of facts about animals and do some laughing, too.
Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/my_presentation_today_is_about_the_anaconda.html
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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.
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