Halls, Kelly Milner. Death Eaters: Meet Nature’s Scavengers. Non-fiction. Millbrook, 10/2018. 40pp. $33.32. 978-1-5124-8200-3. OUTSTANDING. GRADES 3-7.
Without death eaters, the nutrient-starved Earth would be awash in four billion years’ worth of corpses. In five well-organized chapters, lavishly accompanied by color photographs, sidebars, and diagrams, Halls explores the incredibly efficient ecosystem of insects, mammals, birds, aquatic life, and fungi that recycle the dead. There is lots to digest in the gross, amazing, and intriguing information. How can a beetle bury something hundreds of times its size? Was the T-Rex a predator or a scavenger? What cute woodland creatures have a taste for flesh? Back matter includes an index, source notes, a glossary, a bibliography, further reading, and photo acknowledgments. Melissa McAvoy, Live Oak School