cover image What Happens Next?

What Happens Next?

Nicola Davies, illus. by Marc Boutavant. Candlewick, $9.99 (24p) ISBN 978-0-7636-6264-6

“Here’s a hungry chameleon. Here’s a juicy grasshopper. What happens next?” Davies and Boutavant’s nifty guessing game–style introduction to animal habits starts out with a bang (or rather the thwap! of the chameleon’s tongue), though subsequent scenarios aren’t nearly as deadly. Large flaps reveal the answers to such questions as what happens when a peacock tries to get a peahen’s attention or how a bee spreads the word about a flower patch (“The honeybee goes back to the hive and does a wiggly dance that tells the other bees where the flowers are”). Boutavant’s digital illustrations have a retro, Golden Books vibe, both in palette and style; his gently anthropomorphized animals have large, black eyes and friendly expressions, and his bold backgrounds in pinks and reds command attention. Simultaneously available: Who Lives Here? Ages 3–up. (Nov.)