How to Draw Animals

This encouraging spiral-bound guidebook suggests that the first step to drawing animals might be tracing them, as it invites readers to use 70 cardboard pieces to create lions, cats, elephants, birds, and other creatures. Following numbered directions, children can trace the labeled pieces—which include round and squarish bodies, rectangular legs, and curving tails—and then make the resulting drawings their own by coloring them in and adding details, such as a mane and rockers for a rocking horse. Excited comments (“Give your squirrel a tasty acorn in his paws!”) offer plenty of suggestions for customizing the pictures, and Chang’s completed animals, including an ice-skating elephant and a mouse that wears a jacket and bow tie, should give readers some ideas, too. Available simultaneously: How to Draw Dinosaurs. Ages 2–6. (Apr.)