PreSchool-Grade 1-Sayre describes how a variety of animals such as elephants, birds, horses, and fish bathe or groom themselves. Full-page, colorful photos show them in water, in mud, or even taking dirt baths. The author uses simple sentences, yet slips in vocabulary-building words such as "preen" and "spongelike," and she makes common comparisons between animals such as a lioness licking her fur just as a house cat would do. She also offers brief bits of information to stretch youngsters' knowledge, such as descriptions of oxpeckers that travel on the bodies of giraffes and peck away ticks and "cleaner" shrimp that act as animal dentists. The final two pages suggest ideas for observing bathing animals and making a simple birdbath or wildlife pool.
