79 Shopping Days Left! review: Who Was Here? Discovering Wild Animal Tracks, by Mia Posada

9781467718714

A simple introduction to the tracks and daily habits of animals from all over the world. Each begins with a riddle in rhyme (sometimes a bit awkward, so practice before reading aloud), and the reader is invited to guess "who was here?". The next two pages hold an illustration of the animal, with a paragraph of basic information.

The riddles make it pretty easy to guess what the animal is, giving a boost to children who have not ever looked at different animal prints before. The illustrations are very clear, which is helpful for instruction, but if you decide to take your reader out looking for tracks, you will want to explain that they don't usually appear so sharply in the ground! You could even have them run across the mud or snow, then come back to look at how their footprints blurred in places.

A promise to go looking for tracks would be a perfect gift accompaniment to this book. Some other ideas:

a backpack to use on hiking trips, or similar equipment.

A handheld microscope, or some good binoculars.

Maybe some quick-setting plaster to make casts of prints you find.

No chance to go outdoors? These rubbing plates have been almost ridiculously popular at the library art table!

If you do get to go on a 'track hunt', let me know what you find!

Review: The Long, Long Journey: the Godwit's Amazing Migration, by Sandra Markle and Mia Posada

978-076-135-6233

 

I started telling my husband about the trip these birds make at just 4 months old, and he exclaimed, "L. is almost two, and I don't even like him being atthe end of the driveway!"

 

While most animals have to grow up quickly, and many different species migrate, godwits are especially impressive in both areas. A young female godwit hatches in Alaska in early June, and her parents protect her from predators and teach her to fend for herself. By August, she is flying - and then her mother leaves! Her father leads the young godwit and her siblings to the coast, but then he, too, takes off.

 

Around mid-October, the young godwits - with no adults to lead or protect them - take off en masse on a nonstop flight from Alaska to New Zealand. They fly for nearly eight days straight, travelling over 7,000 miles. Their arrival in New Zealand is heralded by gathered crowds and the ringing of cathedral bells, and is seen as one of the first signs of Spring.

 

The simple but poetic ("The young female prances across the mud on her long legs") text tells the story of this young godwit's first summer, easily imparting facts about food and predators. The illustrations seem almost soft to the touch, just as our feathered friends would be. A page of recommended reading and web site suggestion, as well as an author's note of personal experience complete the book. This would be fine as a read-alone, or as part of a curriculum. Recommended for elementary age libraries or classrooms.

 

Thank-you to Millbrook Press for the review copy! For more great nonfiction books (and another review of this one), head over to Perogies and Gyoza.