To the Point: Wild Things and their Beaks, Teeth, Claws

Sharp teeth, vampire teeth, teeth that regrow. Beaks that drill, beaks shaped like spoons, and beaks that amplify sound. Claws to grip, grab, and groom. There’s an astounding range of beaks, teeth, and claws in the natural world. They have all evolved in specific ways for very particular uses. All About Beaks, All About Claws, and All About Teeth, a series of three books written and illustrated by Rohan Dahotre and published by Pratham Books, is the perfect introduction to this bewildering variety for a child. Dahotre’s illustrations are bold, colourful, and rich in detail that invites revisiting them time and again. And inevitably, after the first few readings, they prompt questions from young, curious minds. That’s when the nuggets of information in the last few pages of the books come in handy. For example, parrotfish have thousands of teeth in tightly packed rows. They form a beak with which parrotfish bite hard coral (that they poop out as sand).

See wildlife illustrator Rohan Dahotre’s beautiful art in the excerpted pages below. To read the full books, head to Pratham Books StoryWeaver here.