I wish every child, and every adult who teaches children, and especially people who write children's books about insects and various animals, could read this book. It covers most of the mistakes and confusions we have about animal classification, sorts them out, and tells us why a whale is not a fish, a bat is not a bird, and a spider is not an insect. I myself need to reread the page about the alligator and the crocodile and commit it to memory. I'd give it an unreserved five stars, except that I have two quibbles. Why choose to differentiate between herons and storks when in most of North America it's the cranes that confusingly resemble herons -- both being relatively common and widespread species --, and the much less common native stork more resembles an ibis? (Wiki says that herons and ibis were once considered members of the stork family anyway... okay, I'm now at least three ways confused.) And most vexingly, Singer has completely ignored my personal primary pet peeve and failed to tell us that beetles -- even ladybird beetles -- are not bugs, and that the designation of (true) bugs is reserved for members of the order Hemiptera. There were actually no bugs mentioned in the book, and even so, more than one reader has tagged the book BUGS. This information definitely needed to be included! ( )