Lifetime - The Amazing Numbers in Animal Lives

 By Lola M. Schaefer
Illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal

This book is longer than pictured.  It has huge pages and is great for cuddling up to read with kids.

It is also a counting book for older kids, which I very much appreciate.

 The animals featured are random, and the objects to count reflect an amazing part of that animal's life, like a caribou dropping its antlers, or a seahorse male birthing babies.

The illustrations are in this newfangled modern style, but not twee.  They're really nice.  I'm still finding this style of illustration fresh, probably because it's so clean and simple.

Mathematically, this book is actually useful because it counts by tens for a bit, then shows hundreds of things, then finally one thousand.  It's not about learning all the numbers in between, it's about visualizing numbers.  My kids aren't really old enough to comprehend the concept of one thousand, but when they're ready, this book will be perfect.

We still look through it anyway, because the animal facts are cool.

The Tiny Seed

 Eric Carle

A lot of these books are available as big hardcover books, but I like the board books better.  This one doesn't really make sense for the under two crowd, but it has nice colours and it can be pulled at and chewed on this way.  Having smaller pages doesn't take away from the art, and they didn't edit the books when they made them smaller.

This one is all about seeds from a flower going through all the seasons and finally falling to the ground and making a new flower.  It's about all the seeds that don't make it and why they don't make it.

And then there's this page near the end about how the flower is so big and everyone thinks it's so amazing.  This could have been left out.  My kids just don't care about that.

And then the flower dies and sends off new seeds, continuing the cycle.  It's a good teaching book about the life cycle of plants.

I Like Animals

 By Dahlov Ipcar

This book is available in French, and it's been a great addition to our library.  It works as a picture dictionary of animals and includes all sorts of animals from every ecosystem.  There are hundreds of animals listed in the book.

 It's narrated by a boy who is daydreaming about possible animal-tending related careers in his future.  As a picture dictionary, it's good for toddlers, and as a story book, it's great for older kids.

 The limited colour pallet gives the book great character.  The art is wonderful to look at.

Of course, one of the career options is zookeeper, but not all zoos are bad.

Your First Garden Book

 By Marc Brown

We have yet to start using this book.  I found it at my parents' house, and it's incredible.  It has all kinds of basic plant that kids can grow.  We should be able to start using it next spring.

 I actually like the pictures in this.  They're totally dated.  And it's full of terrible jokes and puns.

The gardening projects include planting parts of vegetables and fruits.  It even teaches you how to make your own peanut plant!

The book is divided by seasons and has recipes and other activities to pad it out.  It isn't a big book, but it's pretty packed with projects and information.  We should be able to use it for a few years.  I'm pretty stoked.

Deep Sea Farm

 By Dahlov Ipcar

I got this one because it was cheap.  It's pretty weird, but I like it.  It is a list of sea animals and plants that are named after land-dwelling creatures.  The paintings are beautiful, and the story is calm and educational.

 I am tagging this book as feminist because even if it is about a man, it's about a merman farmer, which goes against the current gender biases, I think.

 It's also animal friendly, because the farmer is vegetarian and saves all of the fish from being caught by the evil fisherman.  He does go hunting with a giant sword, but I think he's supposed to be hunting predatory fish who are harming his fish friends.

There's no real climax to the story.  It's just slice-of-life.  Slice of a merman farmer's life.

It's a really weird book.  But it makes it that much more intriguing for kids, I think.

One Night, Far From Here

 By Julia Wauters

This book has a lot of information in it that is way over a toddler's head, so it's not a good read for someone under the age of 3.

We look through it and I read bits and pieces.  I usually have to skip a lot of it, because my daughter just wants to find the animals and can't be bothered with learning the common name for each species.

The reason she likes the book, other than the fact that it's a big book full of animals, is that the book presents a series of ecosystems made up of layers of clear acetate pages painted with vegetation, so that you have to peel off the layers of the forest, or jungle, or ocean to find hidden creatures.

This is a unique picture book that will be a great story book when she's older.



I would have posted more and better pictures, but there are so many good ones on the publisher's website:  Flying Eye books

Friday Post - Moving Art on Netflix

 We rely on Netflix to entertain the kids, but we're still careful about how we watch TV with them.  Most importantly, they don't get to pick their shows on their own.  They have to pick from a small selection of things that we're willing to watch with them.

One of the shows that gets requested often and that we encourage is "Moving Art"

 Moving Art is a collection of nature videos with distorted time.  We like to watch the flower one most because we can name the flowers as we watch.  It's really calming to watch.  It's especially good if kids are sick or tired or grumpy.

The music that accompanies it is a sort of fake Phillip Glass.  I dislike Phillip Glass, and this music is pretty corny, but it works well for what the videos are trying to achieve.

I am a Bunny

 By Richard Scarry

This is a classic.  It's a great size and shape.  The pictures are more detailed than the average Scarry book.  It goes through the seasons and shows changes that happen throughout the year.

 The story is really simple.  It's just a sentence or two describing what the bunny does on each page.  The plants and animals are all existing varieties.  This book is particularly great for babies.

A Butterfly is Patient

 By Dianna Hutts Aston and illustrated by Sylvia Long.

We picked this up at the library yesterday.  I picked it out, rather, because my daughter was mostly interested in running around the library.

I didn't look at it much until we got it home.  I found it in the non-fiction area, so I figured it couldn't be bad.  It's incredible.

 Yeah, the title is corny.  Yeah, that text rolling up is a bit much.  But the information in it is really great.  Everything you need to know about butterflies, using all the proper terminology, including the Latin terms and their translations.

 The descriptions are such that my two-and-a-half year old mostly understands it, but it isn't patronising.  I, personally, even found it interesting to read through.


The art is superb: colourful and detailed watercolours.  The pages are laid out in a clear and organized fashion.  Every butterfly, caterpillar and pupa is labeled.

I may end up purchasing this one when the kids are old enough to read it themselves.

www.chroniclebooks.com