Call on Abiyoyo, suggests the granddaughter of the man with the magic wand, then just “Zoop Zoop” him away again. Faced with yearly floods and droughts since they’ve cut down all their trees, the townsfolk decide to build a dam-but the project is stymied by a boulder that is too huge to move. The seemingly ageless Seeger brings back his renowned giant for another go in a tuneful tale that, like the art, is a bit sketchy, but chockful of worthy messages.

With four kinds of spiders, five kinds of ants, and seven different butterflies, there is plenty here to keep young and adult viewers engaged and challenged. Another composite shows flying insects as a backyard viewer would see them looking up-insects from the bottom look very different. Occasionally a magnifying glass is used to enlarge a part of the collage. For example, a backyard meadow shows dragonflies, butterflies, ladybugs, bees, spittlebugs, caterpillars, and more crawling, climbing, and flying in and around milkweed, Queen Anne’s Lace, dandelions, and clover. According to an endnote, the photographer used a computer and “cut-and-paste” technique to edit the photos of individual creatures and place them in the habitat collages in naturalistic poses. Many creatures will be familiar to both urban and suburban dwellers a photo index aids in identifying them. He provides both the specific (how ladybugs take off for flight) and the more global (how critters fit together in the habitat and he invites the reader to become a backyard detective with hints and projects for exploration).

Following each habitat page are two pages of information and identification. Creatures are presented in seven double-page layouts, each a composite of over 60 separate photographs. The talented photo-illustrator ( Digging for Bird Dinosaurs, 2000, etc.) examines 125 backyard creatures, mostly insects, photographed life-sized and described in a detailed text.

Backyard Detective by Nic Bishop