Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful pictures in this book! My niece seemed to be exhaling breathless "wows" on every other page, and several times she and I both reached out to touch the pictures, expecting to feel the texture of an animal's pelt, or the rough bark of a tree. The pictures were that good, that realistic, that beautiful.I enjoyed the story, too, and I thought that the author's use of onomatopoeia to convey the sounds of the forest also gave the text an almost living quality. Sadly, my niece thought that the text was too long, and I don't think it engaged my nephew either. For the kids, this book was all about those fabulous pictures, and sometimes that's good enough.