The Children’s Book Review | June 17, 2017
Animal Bites: Farm Animals
Written by Laaren Brown
Age Range: 5-10
Flexibound: 80 pages
Publisher: Animal Planet (2016)
ISBN: 9781618934130
What to Expect: Nature, Animals, Facts and Activities.
There are so many animals to meet on a farm: from shaggy sheep to funky chickens, to busy bees and hard-working spiders, Animal Bites: Farm Animals introduces readers to the animals, their environments, their lifestyles, characteristics, and just about anything else you might want to know!
Animal Bites: Farm Animals is a wonderful example of my favorite sort of non-fiction for children. Inside the sturdy covers, beautiful, glossy photographs brings this complex ecosystem to life for the young reader, in sumptuous detail. The inclusion of distance and close-up photographs help the reader to see farm life from different perspectives, not only looking on as a human observer, but seeing the environment and the other animals from an animals-eye view. The book also contains a range of different approaches to the material, from full-page spread with only a sentence of text to explain the image, to pages with captions, fact-boxes, and questions to engage the enquiring mind. Above all, the book does na admirable job of showing the farm from a variety of different perspectives: the farms are shown to be not merely entertainment, but also places of work, industry, and business. The section on insects reminds readers that even in this human-dominated environment, nature is hard at work pursuing her own agenda. One minor disappointment was that the book made little reference to the purpose of the animals on the farm: the realities of bacon and dairy-farming, for example, were barely touched-upon, shielding readers from what is, after all, the most important characteristic of real farms. Despite this shortcoming, however, the book is overall an enjoyable and instructive read.
Available Here:
Animal Bites: Wild Animals
Written by Laaren Brown
Age Range: 5-10
Flexibound: 80 pages
Publisher: Animal Planet (2016)
ISBN: 9781618934147
What to Expect: Nature, Animals, Facts and Activities.
There are so many animals out in the wild: from slithering snakes and smiling crocodiles , to prowling lions and scurrying ants, Animal Bites: Wild Animals introduces readers to the wildest animals on the planet, showing us where they live, what they eat, what they look like, and how they spend their time.
Animal Bites: Wild Animals is another beautiful addition to the Animal Planet Animal Bites series, which takes young readers for a walk through many different natural environments. Broader in scopes than some of the other books in the series, such as Farm Animals and Ocean Animals, Wild Animals looks at animals in many different habitats, both on land and under water, covering – for example – endangered animals, wild animals which make good pets, and animals who live in extreme climates. Beautiful photographs combine close-ups, action shots, wonderful still-life scenes, and portraits, allowing readers to examine these animals in great detail and from many different perspectives. Also valuable is the way in which the book alternates between pages which are mostly images, and pages which are mostly fact, allowing the reader to move through the book at a steady pace, without becoming bored or bogged-down in detail. Key vocabulary is put in bold font, and then carefully explained, helping to build literacy skills at the same time as ecological awareness. Best of all, the book is non-judgmental: spiders and stick-insects are presented with the same enthusiasm as baby lions and elephants, helping young readers learn the important lesson that all of nature is beautiful valuable, and fascinating.
Available Here:
The article 2 Non-Fiction Books That Introduce Readers to Animals and Their Environments was written by Dr. Jen Harrison. Discover more books like the titles listed here by following along with our reviews and articles tagged with Animal Planet, Animals, Farm Animals, Nature, Non-Fiction, and Wild Animals.
