Jacquelyn Berrill

From the moment that the young reader is invited to sit quietly on the back porch with the author when she was a little girl and listen and watch carefully, as nighttime comes, this is a book of enchantment and discovery. Few people, young and old, ever suspect how active animals are during the hours of dusk and darkness. So very much goes on in the fields and ponds, from the first emergence of the bats at eventide, swooping and fluttering as they gather their insect food, to the silent hunting throughout the night by owls with muffled wings, to the furtive forays of the field mice and the assured approach of the respected skunk mother and her file of hungry babies.
This latest of Jacquelyn Berrill's fascinating Wonder Books is a guide to the discovery of animal friends that are apt to be less familiar because, for one reason or another, they become most active just at the time when much of the world is thinking of going to sleep. There is a companion book -- Wonders of the Woods and Desert at Night.
The author's illustrations are charming. You can fairly feel the soft fur of the beavers!… (mais)

The delightful companion book to Wonders of the Fields and Ponds at Night is concerned with the fascinating night life of the animals that live farther from our homes, in the woods and on the deserts and plains. We find the deer that hides her twin fawns in a thicket; the opossums that 'play dead' when attacked; the wood rat that carries to its nest every shiny thing it finds, and its desert relative that builds a fortress home; as well as the raccoon that is called the 'rogue in a black mask'. We also meet the wolf, the fox and the coyote and actually come to like them. All these animals are creatures of the night, for that is the time when they go about their business, in the safety of the dark. Jacquelyn Berrill invites us to join them in the activities of their private lives through her scientific, yet friendly text and her completely engaging drawings.… (mais)