Editorial Review

From the new Pet Care for Kids series, Parakeets targets children who may be too young to take charge of pet care but still want to know more about the birds in their homes. A Typical double-page spread features a full-page color photo on the right-hand page, facing a few short sentences of large-print text, a smaller photo, and captions on the other. The book concludes with a short glossary as well as references to a few recommended books, a video, and the ‘Links’ page on the publisher’s Web site. Though the sentences’ brevity and the similarity of their simple construction may be helpful to beginning readers, those qualities give the text a certain monotony when read aloud. Still, the information will be interesting to young children with parakeets, and the lists of the birds’ ‘NEEDS’ and ‘DANGERS’ are useful as well. Other titles in this attractive series spotlight cats, dogs, fish, hamsters, hermit crabs, lizards and turtles.