Packs: Strength in Numbers; Hannah Salyer

We’ve all heard about the importance of collaboration and working as part of a team. As the saying goes, ‘there is no ‘I' in team’. Hannah Salyer’s debut picture book about some remarkable animals proves that everything really is better when than is more than one of you.

Salyer welcomes readers in with four stunning double page spreads featuring groups of a particular animal. Accompanying the animals are the single words for their collective group - there are packs, herds, huddles and pods. Readers are then invited further into the book through a double page spread featuring a collection of burnt-orange coloured Monarch butterflies and the words, “Together, we are better.” Over the course of the book, readers are treated to various collective names for animals and descriptions on how they work together to live, survive and thrive. From ants that work together growing food to survive to lions with feelings who nurture one another. There are frogs that sing together, flamingos that dance together, bees that work together and zebras who confuse together. Even people get a shout-out, a group who generally are better when they are together.

Hannah Salyer has delved deep into the animal kingdom to come up with a book that is big on insightful information and will nourish the minds of young readers with any interest in the animal world. Visually the book is superb, particularly the opening double pages which are just awash with animals of a single type. The double pages that follow are contrasted with a single creature illustrated in a shade of blue on one side and a vibrant illustration of a group of the creatures on the other. Information about the animals and its group sits below the single illustrated animal. Extra information is provided at the back of the book that addresses the issue of endangered animals and what readers can do to help. There is also a helpful visual index to assist readers in identifying any animals that they are unsure of.

Even as an adult I learnt things from this truly fascinating book. My favourite new knowledge…a pack of wildebeest is known as an implausibility and a pack of flamingos is known as a flamboyance - has the collective name for a group of animals ever been more appropriate?

Packs is a brilliant collection of just some of the animals who live together and prove that there really is truth behind the phrase, ‘strength in numbers’.

Recommended for 6+.