This book lives in that gray area between fiction and nonfiction. The Cat in the Hat tells young readers all about the various ways animals camouflage or otherwise adapt to either hide from predators or sneak up on prey.

Although billed as a beginner reader's book, this does not strike me as an "easy reader" for new or struggling readers. The vocabulary can be a bit tricky, with words used like disruptive, concealed, and mimic. However, these are all words that are needed to describe the different types of adaptations, so it is kind of hard to avoid using them in this book.

And, this book is chock full of information, including information about animals well known by small children, like tigers and zebras, as well as lesser known animals, such as stoats and bitterns. Again though, these latter ones will make for tricky reading for beginners. I think this book would work best with an adult reading aloud to a child; I could see it being useful in a school setting as well as a home one.

The book ends with an illustration spread that asks children to find some hidden animals, before wrapping up with a glossary and sources for additional information. Speaking of illustrations, beyond featuring the Cat in the Hat and Thing 1/Thing 2, the illustrations are not really that much in Seuss's style. However, the language does follow a basic rhyming pattern that is evocative of Seuss's text, although some of the rhymes are a bit forced. ( )