Jakki Wood's Animal Hullabaloo: A Wildlife Noisy Book

Wood (Fiddle-I-Fee) gives voice to a menagerie of birds and beasts, replacing narrative with a string of animal noises. As cheerful watercolors depict different environments (farmyard, backyard, African savannah, Australian outback) populated with the appropriate animals, each creature is captioned with an approximation of its characteristic sound (""hee-haw,"" ""oink,"" ""meh meh""). The names of the animals are provided separately, in a picture-gazetteer, aiding the design but forcing the curious to flip back and forth. Although readers will easily bark the dog's ""woof"" or call the owl's ""whooo,"" they'll have to improvise on strange cues for most of the animals (the kangaroo says ""ttut, ttut""; the seal ""eh eh eh""). But once they reckon how to vocalize ""t-rum t-rah"" in a way that sounds somewhat like an elephant, youngsters will have a field day--parents should have earplugs at hand. Ages 2-6. (Sept.)