This book is more advanced than the first informational book about sloths that I read and I definitely liked it much more. This Scholastic book not only talks about many of the different aspects and factors involving these slow animals, but also shows a wide variety of photographs to demonstrate what each section is describing to the reader. One reason that I really liked this book was because of the variety of information that it provided the reader. On page 25, the book talked about sloths as “ancient animals”. Not only did the author talk about the range of sloth species that roamed the earth, but they provided a caption for the picture of the ancient sloth skeleton; “Some ancient ground sloths were very large.” Then, if we look on another page, the author speaks to the reader about sloths in today’s world; “Scientists organize the sloth species still living today into two genera…three-toed sloths…two-toed sloths,” (p.33). The other reason that I really like this book was because of the combination of photographs and illustrations that were used to inform the reader about what the text really meant. On page 38, the author describes the disappearing habitat that the sloths are facing and then goes on to show the reader a picture on page 39 of a lumber worker chopping down a tree in the rainforest. If we then look to page 44 and 45, there is an illustrated map that demonstrates where there are large populations of sloths all over the world.
The main message of this book is to inform readers about the unusual animal, the sloth. Because there are so many different contributing factors to think of when talking about these animals, the author feels that it is almost necessary to describe to the reader what they can do to help the loss of sloth population. This book aims to show the wonders about these animals and gain empathy from its reader in order to help the cause of the loss of sloths. ( )