Jill Bailey

Little Guy likes to take walks and find 'interesting things'. That curiosity for the natural world has focused on birds lately as he has just helped put up a bird feeder in his backyard.

Birds: Explore Nature with Fun Facts and Activities from DK Canada seemed like a good fit!

He's started noticing more about birds with the birdfeeder able to be easily seen from the backdoor. Different songs, colours and behaviour. Birds provides detailed drawings, actual photos and clear text boxes exploring and explaining feet, beaks, wings, flying - physical things that can be viewed. Using some binoculars brought things even closer or clearer. Bird talks about making a bird journal - drawing birds, noting when and where you've sighted, collecting feathers and other notations.

Nests, eggs, cleaning, hatchlings and different types of birds (city, tropical,shore, freshwater, sea, woodland, night etc are each covered on a two page spread.

The facts provided are interesting and many caught Little Guy's interest. The pictures are detailed and in colour, a must for younger ones. The activities mentioned are fairly basic and there are only five or six, with some of them only being suggestions with no directions. We do plan on making the feeding bell on a rope that was detailed.

Birds did feed Little Guy's thirst for 'interesting facts'. At 60 pages, it's a nice little introductory bird book.… (mehr)

In my opinion, the book "Naturescapes" is a great interactive book for upper elementary readers. Something I really liked about this book was the fact that it gave information in a unique way. The first page shows the different "naturescapes" while the pages following have information on the different types of trees and plants that grow in that environment. The information also corresponds with what is in the illustration so you can find the different trees and plants on both pages. For example, the page for grasslands has an illustration of a grassland on one page and the page that follows has a chart in the upper right corner with number on the different plants from the illustration. These numbers correspond to information on the page about which plants and trees are where. There is a short paragraph about each one like the elder, shining sumac, rough blazing star, and the burr oak which are all found in the grasslands. There is also a section on the side of this page with general information about that particular environment in case the reader is looking for more general information about the environments location, animals, temperature, and seasons or blooming. The most attractive feature about the book is the fact that is it three-dimensional with detailed illustrations that seem to be hand painted and done with bright colors. The dimensional factor makes the book very visually appealing and definitely makes the reader want to learn more about what they are viewing as they turn the pages. The big idea of the book is to teach readers about different environments through visual "naturescapes."… (mehr)