Tracks

In his new book, Pyotr Ivanovich Bagin – an artist and writer – continues to introduce children to his favorite theme: the wonderful creatures of nature – the animals and birds that inhabit the forests.
The author explains how to distinguish a wolf from a dog, a lynx from a wolverine, a snowshoe hare from a European brown hare by their tracks; how to identify who lives in a burrow or nest by its appearance; how to "read" the marks left on trees by a bear or a tiger, etc. The book contains many interesting stories: boar wallows, milking moose, fishing bears, birds with bags, badger towns, and otter "joyrides." The "family" sketches are particularly charming: mothers with their young. Even if the picture-stories are not idyllic (the lynx caught a hare, the tiger grabbed a piglet, the owl targeted a raccoon), they do not appear tragic and will not bring the young reader to tears: the child will understand that the inhabitants of the forest live their complicated lives and act according to their instinctual behaviors.