The Queen's Shadow: A Story About How Animals See

Gr 3–6—This highly successful blend of fact and fiction uses a fun tale to impart information about the visual abilities of various animals. When the queen's shadow goes missing at a royal party, all of the guests become suspects. Was it Sir Chameleon? Captain Shark? Dr. Pigeon? Each of the eight guests is questioned and eventually cleared by the queen's royal detective, Mantis Shrimp. The text and the illustrations are pleasantly surprising and will hold readers' attention throughout. Playful and even complex in places, the language has an old-fashioned feeling reminiscent of folklore and fairy tales, with a dollop of detective fiction mixed in ("'It would seem this freeloading floater IS rather far-reaching.'"). Concisely presented sidebars provide facts about the vision of each of the accused creatures, covering topics such as compound eyes, trifocal vision, and tube feet. Large, pen-and-ink illustrations, colored in Photoshop, fill the page, with an effect verging on the surreal. Back matter provides additional information about human vision and more about the featured animals. Pair this title with Steve Jenkins's Eye to Eye: How Animals See the World (Houghton Mifflin, 2014) for further discussion of vision.