How to Chat Chicken, Gossip Gorilla, Babble Bee, Gab Gecko, and Talk in 66 Other Animal Languages

How to Chat Chicken, Gossip Gorilla, Babble Bee, Gab Gecko, and Talk in 66 Other Animal Languages
Co-Authors / Illustrators
  • Adrienne Barman
Publisher Name
What on Earth Books
Age Range
10+
Release Date
October 03, 2023
ISBN13
978-1804660430
ISBN10 or ASIN
      
It’s time to walk on the wild side and talk with the animals. This book will teach you not just how to chat chicken but also gossip with gorillas, mumble with meerkats, and warble with whales. You’ll be ready for any adventure into the animal kingdom.
It’s a noisy world out there. Almost eight billion people are saying hello, asking for directions, buying food, singing lullabies, paying compliments, and all in their own languages--of which there are six or seven thousand! And that’s just humans… animals have millions of languages!

Insects, birds, reptiles, mammals, and amphibians are all talking to each other too, with grunts, squeaks, and tweets, as part of the natural orchestra that is Life on Earth. Some of those noises can sound scary, others sweet… wouldn’t it be nice to be able to understand what they were all trying to say?

Author Dr Nick Crumpton acts as our translator and guide through the animal kingdom in this fun, and funny, book. He teaches us what our pet dog’s bark means and how an orangutan says “Hello!” (Whuuu-whuuu-whuuu just in case you ever need it!). Each sound has been researched using recordings and information from scientists in the field. This book will teach you not just how to chat chicken but also gossip with gorillas, mumble with meerkats, and warble with whales. You’ll be ready for any adventure into the animal kingdom.

Editor review

1 review
Entertaining and Educational
Overall rating
 
4.5
Plot
 
N/A
Characters
 
N/A
Writing Style
 
5.0
Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)
 
4.0
How to Chat Chicken is a fun book of how animals communicate. It is divided by types of animals (by species, genus, family, etc.). There are over 60 very short chapters, but not every one is dedicated to an animal. Interspersed are chapters on processes such as "Stridulation," "Good Vibrations," How Do Baby Animals Learn to Talk?" and "Mimics." There’s even an explanation of dialect.
Each page spread features a scene of animals exhibiting different behaviors and an imitative speech bubble showing the sound the animal makes, a translation into English, and a caption explaining the communication.
I like how the author included information on how animals also use things like scent and body language to speak, as well.

The illustrations are brightly colored and highly cartoon-ish, we liked some better than others. The spreads are very busy, and kids get a kick of pointing different animal movements out.

With a table of contents, glossary, index and sources, this book could be a good choice for an early elementary grade book report, or is a quick enough read for someone visiting another home. Also makes for an interesting book to carry around your local zoo or farm to see what the animals are saying to one another.


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