Non-fiction books Teach New Things

         Thanks to Alyson Beecher's Non-Fiction Picture Book Challenge at Kidlit Frenzy,

I started reading more non-fiction picture books, and found they taught me as well as entertained me. Hope you will find some good books for yourself as you read my post and others.  

           What a delightful book to introduce young readers to a habitat across the world, the African Savanna.  Lola Schaefer uses few words in this tale and she introduces two new terms to learn: "predator" and "prey". The story begins and ends with the animals asleep. And then they wake up and the fun begins! Each page shows a specific animal running, leaping, galloping away from its enemy, i.e. running for its life! The words are lyrical, sometimes rhyming: "Eagles swoop, and hares hop" and "Wild dogs rush, and zebras stampede." 

           Paul Meisel fills the pages with action, showing the animals' movement, exciting against the brown and tan background of the savanna. There is additional information giving the sprint speeds of each animal mentioned in the book. Did you know that the black mamba snake is the fastest animal in the snake family? It can sprint (hard to imagine a snake sprinting!) up to 12.5 miles per hour. Of course the fastest on the ground is the cheetah, at 70 mph. But Schaefer also shares about the martial eagle, who dives at 100 mph! Wow! 

            The book is for younger students, but can be used for a study in using appropriate verbs to describe action and to say much in few words. 

           I posted the following book on Goodreads, review here, saving to share with other fiction books. I also want to mention it here, because while it is a fictional story, so much "true" information is given about the monarch butterflies' life cycle. It would be a terrific part of a butterfly/insect study.

HAPPY READING!