So Cute! Pandas; So Cool! Sharks by Crispin Boyer

I am really torn over this series. It's inexpensive, has National Geographic's trademark photos and humorous asides, but it's also a really weird size and format. I borrowed two titles from other libraries in my consortium to review.

Pandas shows lots of cute pictures of, naturally, pandas, accompanied by speech bubbles and little jokes. It starts with the narrator asking the pandas to wake up and the panda wanting "just five more minutes" along with a photo of a snoozing panda on a branch. After about 10 pages of this kind of dialogue, the book switches to a more nonfiction focus, with basic facts about pandas in bold text and more detailed information in a slightly smaller font on some pages. The back page includes photo credits and links to National Geographic.

Sharks is very similar, with the first few pages showing photos of sharks with commentary and speech bubbles and then basic facts and more detailed factoids. Both books have the text and commentary on brightly colored pages (blue, purple, green) with patterns in black and white around them, as you can see on the covers. The fonts, both large and small, are thin and have a hand-written flair to them.

The main things that are bothering me about these books are the size/layout and the reading level. So, they are very small books - about 7x7 inches and 31 pages long. They would certainly be lost on a shelf with the average picture book or juvenile nonfiction book. They're not quite the right format for an easy reader, but closer - but the text level is way too complex for an easy reader. So, where would one put them? I looked at where the other libraries who purchased them had shelved them, and it looks like they put them in juvenile nonfiction. I do purchase paperbacks for nonfiction, which one could argue are just as likely to disappear on the shelves, but these are just so small!

Verdict: Tellingly the publisher's description calls them "collectible" and ultimately I think that's what they are - cute little animal books that kids would buy at a book fair or collect in a series. I think they would make good prizes if you give away books as well.

So Cute! Pandas
ISBN: 9781426333644

So Cool! Sharks

ISBN: 9781426333613

Published April 2019 by National Geographic; Borrowed from another library in my consortium