Creatures Yesterday and Today.

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.

This companion volume to author-illustrator Patkau’s 2006 Creatures Great and Small offers 11 pairings of creatures, with one member of each pairing being a now-extinct “critter” that lived minimally 1.8 million years ago, while the other creature, a chronologically distant relative, exists today. Included are mollusks, reptiles, fish, arachnids, sea jellies, birds, amphibians, mammals, crustaceans, and insects.

With the exception of the opening pairing, “Diplodocus” and “Skylark,” which runs over two double-page spreads, the pairings share a spread, with the “Yesterday” creature always appearing on the left page and the “Today” on the right. The illustration of each creature is accompanied by a four-line text consisting of two to four sentences. The text, written in the first person from the creature’s perspective, uses the past tense for the “Yesterday” creatures and the present tense for the “Today” representatives.

Patkau’s detailed paintings, which show the creatures in their natural settings, are excellent, but it is not clear if the paired creatures are presented using a comparative scale. A closing illustrated four-page “History of Life” timeline, while useful, will likely require adult interpretation for younger readers. The book’s final page is a glossary containing 24 words. A guide to the pronunciation of some creatures’ names, such as “Ichthyostega” and “Rhizostomites,” would have been helpful. End papers provide a map of the world locating where the book’s creatures or their fossils can be found. The inside of the book’s dust jacket, which reproduces the opening two double-page spreads, makes an excellent reader-enticing poster. Recommended.