The idea of animal partnerships and co-operation is appealing to children, who will be surprised and intrigued by the strange relationships highlighted by science and nature author Marilyn Baillie in her new addition to Owl’s Amazing Things Animals Do series. Side by Side: Animals Who Help Each Other looks at the behaviour of 12 different combinations of animals, such as sharks and the small suckfish called remoras that cling to them. The key to many of the partnerships appears to be food. For instance, sharks tolerate the remoras because the small fish clean mites from the shark’s skin. In return, remoras eat the remnants of shark feasts. A similar relationship exists between Galapagos tortoises and finches.

Baillie’s friendly narrative approach will engage her readers and keep them interested. Kids will be attracted by Romi Caron’s large colour illustrations on each spread. A couple of paragraphs in large type and a thumbnail photograph of the highlighted species accompany each animal scene. Visually, the book will delight younger children but the language is more suitable for readers seven years old and up. At the end of the book, a Who’s Who section gives more information, mainly about each species’ size and habitat. A quiz on the last page invites readers to match clues to the animals and encourages them to revisit the text to find the answers.

The relationships portrayed in this book appear remarkable in their cleverness. However, humans must be careful about how we interpret what we observe in nature. I am a bit uncomfortable with the book’s implication that animals consciously help each other in return for rewards in the way a person would help a neighbour or friend. Animals do what they do in order to ensure their own survival, not to be charitable to other creatures. The fact that several different types of grazing animals on the African plain eat at different levels – treetops, lower branches, tall grasses, and short grasses – means they can co-exist. But they are not making a conscious decision to share. Are capuchin monkeys really helping squirrel monkeys get food, or are they merely going about their own business while squirrel monkeys take advantage of a good situation? Despite this question of interpretation, Side By Side will make a nice addition to the wildlife section in any library and will be popular with children who want to learn more about the weird and wonderful behaviour of animals around the globe.