Alien Invaders: Species That Threaten Our World.

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

While the book’s title evokes images of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, this slim volume is definitely not science fiction. Instead, its factual focus is on 31 species of flora and fauna that have been deliberately or accidentally introduced into new locales with malevolent results. Readers may be surprised to learn that humans and house cats are included among the alien species that also include walking catfish, cane toads, European green crabs, purple loosestrife, Asian long-horned beetles, and stable flies.

Excluding humans, about a dozen of the invaders are found in Canada. Although the contents are divided into five major sections, two, “Ten of the Most Unwanted” and “Communities under Siege” predominate. Two types of text are overlaid on Thurman’s excellent double-page spread illustrations. The engaging “story” portion explains how each invader arrived in its new location and describes the various forms of destruction it has caused. The other text form, which consists of concise information about each alien, is organized under five headings: “Invader” (name, including “aliases”), “Size” (metric and imperial), “Homelands” (normal locale), “Invading” (continents or countries invaded) and “Line of Attack” (how the invader came to be introduced).

The closing section, “Who Cares?” is a call to global action and the two pages of “Lessons Learned” offer practical suggestions regarding roles the book’s young readers can take in stemming and reversing the alien invasions. Highly recommended.