Williams, Sophie. Finding Life: A Prehistoric Search and Find. Sophie Williams, Illus. Addl. Creators Ziggy Hanaor and Rob Wilshaw. Cicada Books, 03/2026. [40]pp. Nonfiction. Trade $18.99. 978-1-80066-054-0. GRADES Kindergarten–3. LOW ADDITIONAL.
This “search and find” novelty book may entertain paleontology enthusiasts, who need only locate the six creatures from each “Can you spot…” sidebar key within its larger two-page spread. The opening two pages provide a surface-level introduction to Earth’s geologic periods and an overview of the development of life. The lively, vivid images with black outlines resemble completed coloring pages, but their busy appearance doesn’t hide the fact that the six objects were pasted into a landscape without care for foreground, background, or scale. Small, irksome errors of omission and context will not interrupt the game of finding objects, but they detract from the usefulness of the work as a whole. There are no source notes, references, further reading, nor pronunciation guides. The otherwise clear and colorful “History of Life on Earth” timeline at the front does not include the two epochs, Pleistocene and Holocene, within the Quaternary Period (misspelled as quarternary, which has a different meaning). However, the missing two epochs are included in the page spreads where Quaternary would be, and in the Glossary, which gives inconsistent tidbits of information on the creatures. This British import provides an amusing game, but is likely to be cataloged as nonfiction under prehistoric life, which will lend it more authority than it deserves.
Erica Siskind—Oakland Public Library