A to Z of Animals
Illustrated by Peter David Scott
(Templar)
This stunningly beautiful book takes you through the alphabet, illustrating the letters with paintings of wild animals. After you’ve reached Z, you find another section with amazing facts about each of the animals, illustrated this time with line drawings. The magnificent artwork and animal information combine well to produce a book that will appeal to parents and older brothers and sisters as well as those young enough to enjoy an alphabet book.
Buy from Amazon
Zoo-ology
by Joelle Jolivet
(Egmont)
There is a wealth of information crammed between the hardcovers of this amazing pictorial encyclopaedia of the animal kingdom, printed on sturdy tinted paper. It documents and groups over three hundred and fifty different creatures, great and small, in various thematic categories, including habitats, external features, habits and colouring. For instance, a shrimp appears in both ‘On the sea-bed’ and ‘Large and small’ and the kiwi is both ‘Underground’ and ‘Feathered’. With its striking artwork is in the style of wood cuts, this veritable treasure trove of a book is guaranteed to open the mind, stimulate thought and discussion and encourage close observation.
(reviewed by Jill Bennett)
Buy from Amazon
Elephant’s Story
by Harriet Blackford & Manja Stojic
(Boxer Books)
This picture book is an information narrative telling of a young African elephant calf’s growth on the African savannah. We learn how her mother cares for her as she makes her early steps and how she is also part of a huge extended family where all are ready to protect her if danger threatens. There are many things a young elephant has to learn including controlling her trunk when drinking and eating and before long she is even able to wash herself. When a new baby is born she helps to care for it; but one day Elephant herself has rescue the newest calf from deadly danger.
The broad sweep and changing colours of the African savannah are dramatically executed in oil pastels.
(reviewed by Jill Bennett)
Buy from Amazon
White Owl, Barn Owl
by Nicola Davies illustrated by Michael Foreman
(Walker Books)
There’s all the information a young ornithologist needs to know about the barn owl in this first person narrative, in which knowledge about the owl, its characteristics and habits, is imparted in an easy conversational style (with additional information given in handwritten annotations). A small girl is taken by her grandfather to fix a nest box in an old oak tree in a meadow. Together they find and dissect an owl pellet, see an owl at close quarters and watch it hunt and raise a family.
There is something magical and mysterious about these wonderful creatures, which is conveyed in the descriptive language and in Michael Foreman’s marvellous ghostly illustrations. This is non-fiction for the young at its best.
(reviewed by Jill Bennett)
Buy from Amazon
Tigress
by Nick Dowson, illustrated by Jane Chapman
(Walker Books)
W riter and teacher, Nick Dowson, is passionate about tigers and obviously knows how to captivate and hold the interest of young children. By talking directly to them, using both everyday images – ‘Bigger than your fist, her pink nose sniffs the air.’ … ‘Small as a sugar bag at birth, baby tigers drink rich mother’s milk and fill up like fat furry cushions – and dramatic descriptions – ‘Like fire the roaring tigress leaps and falls in a crush of teeth and muscle,’ or ‘A pattern of gliding stripes slides into the trees and the mother disappears’- he succeeds
in imparting just the right amount of information and engendering awe and wondering. At the same time, perhaps most importantly, the children are encouraged to think, to discuss and to question.
There are two kinds of text. In larger font, using the present continuous tense, the main storyline gives detals of the everyday life of a mother tiger from the time she seeks out a new den from where, over weeks and months, she nurtures her cubs till, after a year and a half the brother and sister are ready to find their own homes. On each double spread, in smaller italics, are further, ‘bite-size’ chunks of information and embedded in these are scientific terms such as camouflage, predators, prey and territory.
Perfectly complementing the text are Jane Chapman’s arrestingly powerful visual images, seemingly painted on mango patterned coloured papers. Every page is alive with colour and movement capturing the very essence of the tiger and its habitat. There is a final spread giving brief additional information about the threat to the tiger population, an index and a paragraph each on the author and illustrator.
Not to be missed this one.
(reviewed by Jill Bennett)
Buy from Amazon
The Emperor’s Egg
by Martin Jenkins Illustrated by Jane Chapman
(Walker)
This worthy winner of the TES Junior Information Book of the Year is non-fiction
written in a way guaranteed to capture children’s attention. It tells
how male Emperor Penguins incubate the egg and look after the chick until
mum returns. Although it’s a factual account not a fictionalised story,
it’s full of details and comments that children love. For instance – “As
soon as things have calmed down, the mother penguin is sick – right into
her chick’s mouth. Yuk, you may think. Yum, thinks the chick.” The excellent
pictures combine beautifully with the text to produce a very useful and
enjoyable book.
Ages 3-8 and older children with special needs
Buy from Amazon
Little Turtle and the Song of the Sea
by Sheridan Cain. Illustrated by Norma Burgin
(Little Tiger Press)
This beautiful picture book tells the tale of a baby turtle hatching from
his egg and making his way across the beach to the sea which is calling
him home. The well structured story builds in tension as the turtle meets
one problem after another and the text, with its repeating rhythm of the
sea’s song, is easy to read aloud. Add to this the wonderful illustrations
and the end result is a book which is a delight for its own sake as well
as for its links to studying the environment.
Ages 3-6 and older children with special needs
Buy from Amazon