Odd Couples: A Guide to Unlikely Animal Pairs

Unusual aspects of the animal kingdom readily attract young readers. This interactive picture book has a single concept: it compares dissimilar species with one trait in common. Using a Q/A format, nine examples share the pattern of one double-spread for the question (What could this odd couple have in common?) and a second spread for the answer explained in short factual inserts. The fun part is the surprise element of the common trait, e.g. you’d never guess a opossum using a long tail to hang in trees vs a millipede with many legs to dig underground both protect themselves with stinky odors. Nor would you likely know that humans and koalas both have fingerprints. Most of the animals will be familiar to kids, except perhaps for the Ussurian tube-nosed bat.

Illustrations are cartoon-style, with bright eye-catching color and lots of smiling faces, set against a bit of habitat as background. There’s a very short Glossary, but no resources list to encourage readers to explore the topic further. Perhaps if intrigued by these few examples, readers might be curious enough to wonder about other unusual animal traits when they read other nature books.

Odd Couples: A Guide to Unlikely Animal Pairs, a simple introduction to the animal world, would work as a read-aloud to younger nature lovers.