A Little Book of Sloth

From School Library Journal Gr 3-5-Cooke's chatty, colloquial appreciation focuses on baby sloths in a Costa Rican sanctuary. The rescued infants and a few older companions were introduced in a documentary film, Too Cute! Baby Sloths, made by Cooke for TV's Animal Planet. Appealing color photographs of these winsome babies will surely captivate animal lovers. Bits of information on physical characteristics, behavior, and life in the sanctuary thread through an admiring discussion, emphasizing the smiling faces, hugging propensities, and sleepy lifestyle of the sloths. The science information is sketchy and often in terms likely to be most meaningful to adult readers. "The Bradypus, or three fingered sloth, is the Muppet with the medieval haircut and Mona Lisa smile." The fingers appear to be claws, and no further explanation of their structure and use is provided. Though the text mentions ways the baby sloths are actually trained to carry out some bodily functions as they would occur in the wild, there's no mention of these animals ever being released from the sanctuary except in a brief endnote on respecting sloths as wild animals not to be made into pets. This message runs a bit counter to the gushiness of the text and the many scenes of humans cuddling them. Though explanations and information about both the sloths and the sanctuary are rather skimpy, this is an attractive introduction to an unfamiliar species.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Bostonα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. From Booklist Kids, you can’t possibly imagine the level of cuteness at work in this book. Here’s a visual: a baby sloth hugs a teddy bear, and he’s smaller than the bear. There are sloths in pjs, sloths gnawing on green beans, and even a pile o’ sloths in a bucket. Of course, in addition to the huggable pictures and handsome book design, there’s a story here too. Cooke, photographer, zoologist, and founder of the Sloth Appreciation Society, introduces a rehabilitation sanctuary in “a sleepy corner of Costa Rica,” home to approximately 150 slow-moving residents. Judy Arroyo is “mom” to each of these creatures, from Buttercup, the first tiny orphan that landed on her doorstep, to Sunshine and Sammy, rescued from poachers. Cooke points out in her lively text that there are two families of sloth: the three-fingered Bradypus and the two-fingered Choloepus (“a cross between a Wookie and a pig”). Fascinating facts about sloths abound. Move over puppies, kittens, and piglets—kids are going to have a new favorite animal when they get their hands on this, especially given the unofficial sloth motto: “Just chill.” Grades 2-4. --Ann Kelley * "Cooke writes with a firm sense of authority and a loving irreverence that lifts these pages far above most real-life animal books and should make the inevitable umpteenth readaloud easy to bear." ― Publishers Weekly, *STARRED REVIEW* * "Move over, pandas—there’s a new adorable wild animal on the picture-book scene. Sloth aficionado Cooke casts the sloths of Costa Rica’s sloth sanctuary (which she dubs “Slothville”) in an adorable photo-essay that combines vivid images of the photogenic residents with lively information about sloths in general and individual residents...kids with patience for the book’s longer length will enjoy listening to it as a read-aloud, and plenty of youngsters will be happy just to flip through the images of an unfamiliar but deeply cuddle-able collection of creatures." ― ― Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books *STARRED REVIEW* Lucy Cooke is a British filmmaker, photographer, zoologist, and founder of the Sloth Appreciation Society. A Little Book of Sloth is her first book. Visit her at Slothville.com. Read more