Camp Panda: Helping Cubs Return to the Wild, by Catherine Thimmesh

 Camp Panda: Helping Cubs Return to the Wild, by Catherine Thimmesh

Thimmesh, C. (2022). Camp Panda: Helping cubs return to the wild. Clarion Books. 

Camp Panda: Helping Cubs Return to the Wild, by Catherine Thimmesh, is a joyful, humorous children’s non-fiction book that explores the process of returning young pandas to the wild in order to repopulate an endangered species. Thimmesh has written a number of non-fiction books aimed at children, including a book about what dinosaurs actually looked like and how we know. However, there is no indication, either on her website or in the book, that she has any further qualifications to talk about the subjects of her non-fiction works. She does, however, provide acknowledgements and a list of sources at the end of the book, indicating she consulted conservation centers and organizations and many scientists who were experts in this field. This book narrows its focus as it goes into something very well suited for children of the age it is aimed at. It starts with an introduction to the wildlife conservation center that most of the book is about, then appropriately widens its scope to discuss the problem as a whole that has led to the group’s mission. This is a logical use of this book. The writing style is very appropriate for the intended age group as well. Thimmesh uses evocative language, like “roly-poly furball”, to describe a baby panda bear on the first page. The rest of the book is equally so. As touched on previously, the organization of the book is such that it first talks about the focus of this book (a baby panda being cared for by a scientist at a conservation center), then moves wider to talk about the larger relevant problems (pandas loss of habitat and population), and finally moves back inward to talk about the conservation center again. There are also plenty of reference aids. There is an index at the back, as well as a glossary and a suggestion page full of next steps on what readers can do to help save the panda and other endangered species. There’s also a list of works cited and a list of scientists who helped with the book. However, there’s no table of contents, though the work is split into sections. As for the format of the work, the font size varies throughout, with larger fonts for the titles of each section, smaller fonts for the first paragraph of each chapter, and even smaller fonts for the body text. This works well for the book and goes relatively unnoticed. The font itself is appropriate, and complements the work itself. Finally, the book is filled with large color photographs of panda bears and scientists dressed up as panda bears to work with the panda cubs at the wildlife center. These images are somewhat humorous for children, as the idea of a human in a panda onesie is doubtlessly engaging.