Nancy Carol Willis

I liked this book for a few reasons. First, I enjoyed the onomatopoeia used throughout the book. The book explained that when predators come too close to a robin’s nest the male robin cries “Tuk, tuk, tuk, teeeeek!” to scare the predatory away and when the young birds, or fledglings, are learning to fly they “Hop, flutter, plop!” to the ground. This integration of sound into an informational book allowed me to connect with the text by giving me a cue to stop and thinking about the times I’ve heard and seen these events happening, which I have seen a few times before. Another reason I liked this text is for the comparisons it made between robins and humans. For example, the text detailed that if humans were to grow as fast and at the same rate as fledglings then humans would be “90 pounds by the time [they] were ten days old!” Also, the book explained that a robin’s eyes are on the side of their head in comparison to humans who have their eyes on the front of their head. These comparisons made the facts more interesting to me because I was able to imagine what it would be like to gain 90 pounds in ten days and to have my eyes on the side of my head. The big idea of this informational book was to provide the reader with information about robins and do it in a way that gave the reader a multitude of ways to connect with the reading, whether that be via the in text comparisons or the awesome illustrations.… (mehr)