WORLD OF FORESTS

Visits to 10 types of forest, with
portraits of select native wildlife and audio soundscapes.

Though the lineup does include an
unusual “Desert Forest” on Yemen’s Socotra Island and locales for the rest of
the more-common woody habitats are likewise specified, Hunter’s generic,
artificially populous panoramas are neither placed on a map nor presented in
any particular order. His wildlife characters, six or seven per spread, pose
naturalistically but are sometimes seen from distorted perspectives—a wood
mouse in England’s deciduous New Forest looks, for instance, almost as big as
the donkey—making it hard to compare relative sizes. Numbered, descriptive
captions squeezed in among the figures highlight the animals’ distinctive calls
or noises, snatches of which can also be heard on the enclosed sound chip.
Pressing hard and repeatedly on a designated spot, one per spread, results in a
uselessly brief audio sequence of fragmentary hoots, squeaks, snorts, chirps,
and general rustling presented, supposedly, in left-to-right order. Oddly,
several of the chosen animals, such as snowshoe hares, okapi, and blue-baboon
spiders do not vocalize and so are sonically represented (if at all) only by
magnified leaf chewing or some similar contrivance. The sound chip features
replaceable batteries but no on/off switch.

Ambitious in concept, pedestrian at
best in execution. (Informational novelty. 7-10)