[Pet Health Admin]

Customer Review: A book about hedgehogs not porcupines, and inaccurate.
My six year old daughter recently brought this title home from her school library because she recognized the creature on the cover to be a hedgehog, and knows I love hedgehogs. My first reaction was of course,--stunned to see the title "The Porcupine", when in fact it was a hedgehog. The content of this book is a confusion of hedgehog and porcupine facts with inaccurate information about both animals, which are not even related. One is a rodent and an herbivore (porcupine), and the other an insectivore (hedgehog) and not a rodent. The text refers to the European Hedgehog over and over again as a "porcupine". The hedgehogs pictured weigh about 2.5 lbs. as adults, and are about 12" long. Porcupines have a totally different shaped nose, a much longer tale, and longer spines, weigh about 40 lbs., and are about 2 feet long as adults. As a former elementary school teacher I am appalled to think that children will be reading this book to learn, and be receiving such complete, and total misinformation. This book was apparently translated from French, and maybe a very poor job was done during the translation. There are many other GOOD sources for information out there about porcupines and hedgehogs. Don't even think about buying this one.


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