Patricia Kendell

This book about grizzly bears is very informative for children and includes necessary text features. Grizzly bears has many topics in this book from where the bears live, the cubs growing up, hunting, waking up from hibernation, and helpful hints to help bears survive; in all there are 13 topics in the book. This is a lot of information for a child, however the pages have large pictures and few words with a lot of information in simplified vocabulary. I think this would be a good informational book for grades 1-3 (to read independently). The images on the other hand, are not very helpful because this is an informational book, so only children who can read independently and well should read this book. In addition, there are a could text features included in this book that are fairly simple: table of contents, further information, glossary, and index. These text features can be found in almost all informational books, so if a child starts to see them early, they can ask questions or understand the purpose on their own.… (mehr)

"Giraffes" was a great informational text for young readers. It had about one sentence per page, leaving the majority of the page with the picture. First off, I liked how this book used actual photographs instead of drawings or paintings because it gives the book more of a realistic and advanced setting. The book not only includes a table of contents but a glossary, an index, wildlife organization information, various giraffe books, and multiple giraffe websites for the reader to learn even more about giraffes. This also gave me the sense of reading an actual textbook, which could make readers feel like they're reading something important. The book also added something new, a simple grass design around the page number on each page. I loved how the author was able to add a small piece of fun colored illustration since the rest of the book was a photograph against a white page. The main idea of this book is to educate readers on the giraffe. It was also to make readers aware of the harm in poaching giraffes.… (mehr)