Making Friends With Dogs
by Wendy Wahman
This cute, quirky picture book looks like fun, but comes with good, solid information, too.
The bold, colourful pictures and rhyming texts make this super kid-friendly and make the lessons about how to approach dogs easy to digest. From safety notes about initial contact, though using body language to draw out a shy dog and how to pet a dog, right up to how to react to dog behaviour that you don't like, this picture book is well-pitched and right on cue.
For a kid who loves dogs and would like to know how to act around them, or for a child who is fearful but comes in contact with them and needs some guidance on how to manage their interactions, this book is a winner.
Showing posts with label learning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label learning. Show all posts
Friday, September 24, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Earth Day: Recycle Every Day!
by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace
Nancy Wallace brings her adorable collage-art bunnies to another informative picture book, this time, about recycling. As she has in books about apples, shells, rocks, and more, Wallace skillfully works a lot of information into a story format in which the bunnies are learning, and we learn with them.
Here, Minna has a school project to do, and she has to make a poster about recycling. Before she can start, though, she needs some ideas. Through the week, she watches her family and notes the many ways they recycle, including donating used books and clothing, composting, recycling cans, and noticing packaging made from recycled paper. She also notices some actions that might technically fall into reducing waste or reusing, which are not carefully delineated, but the point is still made, and certainly adequate. In the end, her poster is chosen for the cover of a school calendar about recycling.
At the rear of the book are included a recycling game and activity to use in extending the book's teachings.
Nancy Wallace brings her adorable collage-art bunnies to another informative picture book, this time, about recycling. As she has in books about apples, shells, rocks, and more, Wallace skillfully works a lot of information into a story format in which the bunnies are learning, and we learn with them.
Here, Minna has a school project to do, and she has to make a poster about recycling. Before she can start, though, she needs some ideas. Through the week, she watches her family and notes the many ways they recycle, including donating used books and clothing, composting, recycling cans, and noticing packaging made from recycled paper. She also notices some actions that might technically fall into reducing waste or reusing, which are not carefully delineated, but the point is still made, and certainly adequate. In the end, her poster is chosen for the cover of a school calendar about recycling.
At the rear of the book are included a recycling game and activity to use in extending the book's teachings.
Earth Day: Bag in the Wind
by Ted Kooser
ill. Barry Root
This book is a picture book in format, but far wordier and older than your average picture book consumer - what we call in libraries an "advanced picture book." It follows a plastic grocery bag as it escapes the landfill on a breeze and makes its way from one place to another, until it ends up in the hands o fa girl who had found it at the start. This circle is not noticed, because, the book notes, this plastic grocery bag was just like any other.
This isn't a story that would lend itself to younger children, as there is little real action to hold them, but it is an interesting journey for an older child with greater concentration, and it is beautifully told. The language is lovely, the illustrations warm and nostalgic in feel, and the matte pages thick and substantial. The overall effect is in fact quite wonderful (as one might well expect from a Candlewick publication), and the environmental messages in the actual story are not strongly emphasized so as to detract from the bag's ramblings.
A message about plastic bags at the end gives those who would like to know more a bit of extra information, and encourages children to reuse plastic bags or forgo them altogether in favour of cloth.
ill. Barry Root
This book is a picture book in format, but far wordier and older than your average picture book consumer - what we call in libraries an "advanced picture book." It follows a plastic grocery bag as it escapes the landfill on a breeze and makes its way from one place to another, until it ends up in the hands o fa girl who had found it at the start. This circle is not noticed, because, the book notes, this plastic grocery bag was just like any other.
This isn't a story that would lend itself to younger children, as there is little real action to hold them, but it is an interesting journey for an older child with greater concentration, and it is beautifully told. The language is lovely, the illustrations warm and nostalgic in feel, and the matte pages thick and substantial. The overall effect is in fact quite wonderful (as one might well expect from a Candlewick publication), and the environmental messages in the actual story are not strongly emphasized so as to detract from the bag's ramblings.
A message about plastic bags at the end gives those who would like to know more a bit of extra information, and encourages children to reuse plastic bags or forgo them altogether in favour of cloth.
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