A few days ago, a follower of the blog asked me for some nonfiction suggestions for 5-8 year olds. As I searched through some past posts to see what titles I could share, I realized that I haven't featured many nonfiction titles on here. Making nonfiction appealing to little ones can be tricky, but there are some gems out there that my kids and I absolutely love.
Living Color is one such book. In fact, it's the kind of book for which I knowingly and willingly pay overdue library fines, because my son loves it that much and we've already renewed it as many times as we're allowed. (I plan on sneaking it back to the library tonight so that it will be there for him to take out again tomorrow.) Time to add another title to our must-own list!
We found this book on the library shelf in the nonfiction section about animals, and it was love at first read for my little nature lover. In Living Color, author and illustrator Steve Jenkins has created a fabulous book that "takes a look at color in the animal world and some of the ingenious ways it is used." Creatures of all kinds are sorted by color within its pages -- birds, spiders, snakes, fish, lizards, mammals -- each with an informative little description about what makes this animal unique. The end of the book features an illustrated glossary of each animal mentioned within, including more information about the creature's size, habitat, and diet. There is also an interesting page spread about why animals are different colors, how their colors are created, and how their colors have evolved through natural selection. It's fascinating, colorful, and full of information for curious little minds.
If your child loves animals, science, or nature, be sure to look for this book the next time you are at the library. My daughter (almost 3) loves looking at the pictures with us and learning about the animals, though doesn't have the attention span to sit through the reading the whole thing. My 5 1/2 year old son, however, asks me to read this to him from cover to cover on a regular basis.
I've learned that Steve Jenkins has some other fabulous nature books out there, too, so am eager to look for more of them when we go to the library tomorrow. In fact, I just realized that he also wrote Hottest, Coldest, Highest, Deepest, another great nonfiction book that we've read and loved. If we're lucky, perhaps we'll find ourselves coming home with more than one of his books tomorrow. If the others are as good as these ones, we'll be sure to let you know.
I've never read this book so I can't vouch for its quality, but I'm so curious to check it out. It looks so fun! I stumbled across this book on Amazon and am going to look it up in our local library system. We love building sandcastles at the beach in the summer, and while this book is probably more complicated than we can handle, it still seems like it would be fun to read. I'll let you know if we find it and what we think!
