What Happens Next?

A smartly designed lift-the-flap book reveals surprises in the animal kingdom.

A hungry chameleon spies a juicy grasshopper. Turn the half-page. His long tongue shoots out to catch it. Going on, Davies presents other unexpected animal behaviors. A beaver swims underwater into its cozy, dry den. A peacock displays his tail and screeches at a female. A bee dances to tell others in her hive about a patch of flowers. Chimps catch termites with a stick. The final spread in this sequencing exercise offers a matching game to remind young viewers of the actions described. Boutavant's bright digital art spreads across the pages, the flaps matching and smoothly revealing each different scene. There is much for pre-readers to look at and enjoy in his busy natural world. Also in the Flip the Flap & Find Out series, Who Lives There? introduces animal biomes by hiding the answer to the titular question under one of four tabs. A jungle, a freshwater pond, a grassland, a coral reef and the Arctic offer distinctly varied habitats for the 20 different species introduced. The final spread asks youngsters to group the species. While these paper flaps last, they’re sure to get plenty of flipping.

"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.)