This is a very sweet book that is a great introduction to kids about how to hold all sorts of different animals. It would be a great one to read before heading to the zoo or doing any sort of animal encounters. Really enjoyable!

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* wow well this is a very extensive book of animal holding, not gonna lie, 5 stars

How to Hold Animals
By Toshimitsu Matsuhashi

I really enjoyed this very thorough non fiction book written by well known vets in Japan about how to hold large and small animals, critters, insects, birds, spiders, and many more. I am very surprised it even included how to hold a cockroach. Not that I would want to, but someone may and there is always the right way to handle these creatures without hurting them.

I found that the pictures really helped. I have budgies and it was great to see the proper way of handling them. I feel that this book would really make a great resource for animal lovers, teachers with their students, and parents as they explore the world with their children. The photos in every page were incredible and really did teach me a lot.

I highly recommend this amazing book full of wonderful information.

How to Hold Animals by Toshimitsu Matsuhashi is a non fiction book for children and adults alike that want to learn from the experts (a pet shop owner, a veterinarian, a wildlife photographer, and a reptile handler) about how to pick up and hold dozens of species of animals. From great to small, furry, scaly, and feathery, including snails, chipmunks, chickens, chinchillas, stag beetles, lizards, hamsters, owls, grasshoppers, mice, and more. Chock full of fascinating facts, interviews with experts, and full-color photos on every page. It is currently scheduled for release on November 3 2020.

How to Hold Animals is a wonderful resource for animal lovers that want to get hands on with their favorite creatures in a safe and respectful way. I really enjoyed the combination of great photographs, practical information, and additional interesting information about each creature. I think readers can use this book in several ways, as pointed out in the book's introduction. Readers could simply enjoy the photographs, which are well worth the time. Readers can also look at the information about the creatures they have the most interaction or interest in, or those that they are likely to see in the wild around them. They can also be like me, and read the text from cover to cover in an attempt to retain as much of the information as possible. I highly recommend adding this book to the collection of animal enthusiasts of all ages, although I think those going into animal care or inspiring to will get the most from this book. In fact, I think my daughter just might be getting a copy for Christmas since this is her favorite field of study.

3.5. This visually appealing volume will surely attract its intended audience of elementary and middle school-aged children. It would make a nice addition to any large public library, school library or environmental centers.

How to Hold Animals is an interesting picture book for young readers(?). Due out 3rd Nov 2020 from Simon & Schuster on their Scribner imprint, it's 128 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.
This is a difficult book to review. On one hand, there are certainly times when knowing how to handle a pet or potentially injured animal safely is very important. On the other hand, most of this book's content isn't concerned with house pets, but with wild/exotic animals and especially insects and reptiles. The book is divided into sections with photo tutorials from a veterinarian, a photographer, a pet shop owner, and a reptile handler (!!).

I can't think of many situations where children really should be learning this information. Most insects and many animals are relatively fragile and can easily be injured or killed by mishandling. Additionally, this book covers quite a number of poisonous and/or venomous animals and the author states quite clearly that handling these animals badly will result in painful bites or bloodshed or both. Since the book includes pictures of people handling crocodiles, monitor lizards, and poisonous snakes, I'm a little wary of enthusiastically recommending that kids should be encouraged to follow suit. The author does stop short of directly encouraging kids to grab their local alligators, but there are -numerous- photos of butterflies, crickets (which can give a fairly painful bite), praying mantids, and -scorpions- in the book.

Maybe this book is meant as satire, and I'm just too square to get it, because I did get a giggle out of picture sidebars which said things like: "Always expect it to bite!" and "Poisonous lizards are rather excitable" and "Crocodiles are really strong". There are several places in the text where the author says straight out: "To me, merely watching animals is the same as not being interested in them. Instead of talking loftily about animal protection, I'd rather pick an animal up". Additionally, I found it troubling that the author said "You could take this home and look after it. It would be interesting". Everyone knows that every kid ever has brought home frogs, toads, tadpoles, etc, but just capturing wild animals and bringing them home is (and should be) very frowned upon.

No, I can't recommend this book. The pictures are interesting, but no.

Two stars. Major problems.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

This is a brief and very useful guide about how to pick up and hold animals safely without harm to them and yourself. It focuses mainly on wild animals but also has chapters on farm animals and domestic (pets) animals. Each animal is highly detailed about the areas of concern for their health and safety but to why you hold each animal a certain way that may not look normal but it is safe for all.

I appreciate all the details and photos in this book for a step by step how-to. I disagree with the restraint on house rabbits. For most rabbits, it is painful to be scruffed and can cause more fear to a prey animal. I volunteer at a House Rabbit Society on a regular basis, and even the rabbits know to bite, box, and grunt are handled in a way where if they kick it will not injure their spines. Hindquarters need to be supported to protect the spine!

A good reference but always talk to your vet if you have questions about how to hold your pet properly and always monitor young children with all house pets.

Thanks to Netgalley, Toshimitsu Matsuhashi and Scribnar for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 11/3/20

Honestly, I was a little thrown by <em>How to Hold Animals</em> by Toshimitsu Matsuhashi. On the one hand, I can certainly consider this an incredibly informative book about the proper ways to handle various creatures that a person <em>may</em> end up coming across in their lives. On the other, it's a bit over the top and, considering the fact that the audience is supposed to be children, a bit <em>too </em>encouraging in the wrong direction at times. The thing is, I did my fair share of picking up various insects and animals as a kid, but there really is a line to be drawn at some point

I'll give the author and contributors this, they certainly have a point when it comes to proper animal care while picking them up. It's basically a certainty that I probably harmed any countless number of insects when I was a child hellbent on picking them up and taking them home to keep as pets. So, teaching the no doubt numerous children who do have the audacity to pluck up unsuspecting creatures from the ground the ways to do so <em>without</em> harming the animals is a noble endeavor

And of course the contributors to this book are all highly qualified professionals, ranging from veterinarians to pet shop owners. These are the kind of people who handle animals of all varieties for a living, and so naturally they have a wealth of knowledge with which to educate the youth of our world. In that, I really loved this book. And I do genuinely feel that even I, at twenty-seven, learned a <em>lot</em> about how to hold these creatures in a way that I will certainly pass on to any children I have in the future.

<b>Of course, there is a bit of a downside</b>

Had this book been written for <em>adults</em>, I probably wouldn't have really taken issue with any of it. There's a lot of useful information for any reader and it certainly offers insight into some potentially fun--albeit some also dangerous--experiences that I can't really bar an adult from going after. I don't think this book is<em> </em>in <em>any</em> way a substitute for professional training, of course. But, I can say that if you're an adult and you make a decision to do something potentially dangerous like pick up a snake...well, your decision.

That said, I don't really appreciate the fact that such suggestions are made in a book that is primarily meant to educate parents and children. Sure, for the average pet store snake...I understand. I don't particularly have any interest, but I don't really see a problem either. It's the more dangerous snakes and animals that make me feel incredibly weary of this book's <em>encouragement</em> for children to go around picking up all kinds of creatures

I applaud the endeavor to educate all in grabbing various animals in the <em>safe</em> and proper way, both for the holder and the animal, but I don't know if I'd go as far as to say that more children need to be picking up various animals they find about them. Sure, go pick up a butterfly--and don't damage their wings while doing it; I don't particularly agree with the method they use in the book and much prefer to have a butterfly walk across my hand--but don't go grabbing at the random snake in your backyard.

Even if it is a garter snake. There's just a limit. Either way, this book is informative and, if you're going to be picking up the creatures in your backyard, worth a read.

I really wanted to like this one. The pictures are great and the information is interesting. I just can’t shake the feeling that a lot of animals are going to end up unintentionally maimed by over-excited kids picking up bugs they never should’ve been handling in the first place.

I was taken in by the adorable cover of the upcoming book How to Hold Animals by Toshimitsu Matsuhashi. I thought it would be a whimsical and helpful guide to holding animals for kids. It is designed for kids and adults, written by several Japanese men (a pet shop owner, a veterinarian, a reptile handler and a wildlife photographer) but I cannot describe it as very whimsical.

I was able to read a digital Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of the book from the publisher. After reading it I can’t say that I recommend it.

I actually really felt bad for the animals in many of the cases. It focuses mostly on the specific animals these men seem to encounter, with a major focus on reptiles and bugs especially. It starts with a little blurb about how children should be encouraged to hold animals but I don’t even agree with this. There’s really no reason a child needs to learn how to catch and hold a dragonfly, butterfly or other insect easily harmed by being held.

Our kids frequently hold butterflies that we raise and release or encounter in our gardens, but they willingly crawl onto their fingers or land on them.

The kids never restrain them or pinch their wings shut like this book demonstrates. There’s also no reason a child needs to learn how to hold a dangerous animal that has painful bites, kicks or stings (or in the case of prairie dogs, is one of the best ways to still catch the plague in the United States!).

I’m just baffled as to why I would want to teach my kids how to catch and hold a scorpion, a monitor lizard or an alligator snapping turtle. Many of the descriptions tell kids that the animals are likely to bite and it will be painful or there will be a lot of bloodshed.

The end section has animals that are especially dangerous like anacondas and crocodiles. It tells kids not to hold them but it has pictures of the author holding them all and still gives advice about how to do it.

I liked the section featuring the vet the best. Those animals struck me as typical pets (rabbits, dogs of different sizes, cats, hamsters, etc.) and it was good advice about how to hold them to treat them as a vet, how to not get injured, and how to make them feel safe.

The wild sections and the exotic pet sections seemed far more exploitative of the animals and just left a bad taste in my mouth. If the book featured the vet then I’d probably give it 4 stars, but that was only a short section and the other sections really seemed unwise, unsafe and sometimes inhumane.

Yes, kids can learn how to grab insects and reptiles in the wild and hold them without hurting them, but how many attempts will it take before they get the knack, and how many creatures will they harm (and bites and stings will they incur, in some cases) before they get it down? It’s not necessary. Leave wildlife alone and take a picture, or just watch them and let them be on their way.

How to Hold Animals (affiliate link) by Toshimitsu Matsuhashi is expected to be published November 3rd 2020 by Scribner. While I would recommend the vet section for helpful information for holding pets (and an injured owl), I have serious reservations about the advice pertaining to capturing and holding wildlife.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review.

I've held all sort of critter over my career working in a library. I never really thought there was a right or wrong way to hold them. But then, I was handling very dangerous ones either! This was a enlightening book o n how to handle (or not) various creatures, from insects to animals, so they can't harm YOU! It's more of a how not to get bit, stung, pinched, and other injuries, from animals. I liked the photos. Fun read for anyone interested in animals.