A Llama Is Not an Alpaca And Other Mistaken Animal Identities

Combining scientific facts with the art of poetry, this is a humorous and educational picture book about animals that look alike.

How do you tell a llama from an alpaca, an alligator from a crocodile, or a dolphin from a porpoise? The animal kingdom is full of creatures that look so similar to others that they are often confused for each other. A Llama Is Not an Alpaca pairs rhyming animal riddles with factual responses to both teach and engage young readers as they compare and contrast features of commonly misidentified animals. How many will you get right?! 

A former teacher, Karen Jameson holds a master's degree in education. She's the author of MOON BABIES (Putnam, 2019), WOODLAND DREAMS, FARM LULLABY, and WHERE THE WEE ONES GO (Chronicle, 2020, 2021 & 2022) and SHINE (Groundwood, TBD), among other titles. Karen has published a number of nonfiction science articles in AppleSeeds and Ask magazines. She has won a special mention picture book poetry award at the SCBWI CenCal Writer’s Day and is the recipient of the Sue Alexander Grant.

Lorna Scobie grew up in the depths of the English countryside, climbing trees and taking her rabbit for walks in the fields. She is an illustrator and designer, now based in south-east London. Growing up surrounded by nature has heavily influenced her illustrations and her work often revolves around the natural world and animal kingdom. She enjoys illustrating non-fiction 0-6 and 6+, black and white, children’s books, and pre-school books. Lorna draws every day, and always has a sketchbook close to hand when she’s out and about. She illustrates her work by hand rather than digitally, as she enjoys the spontaneity and also the ‘happy mistakes’ that can happen along the way. Lorna uses a range of materials, including paint, pencils and pens.