What Do You Do If You Work At The Zoo? by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

Zookeepers take care of animals.  I'm confident my students know this and What Do You Do If You Work at The Zoo? by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page is perfect for opening their minds to surprising things zookeepers may do.  The top of each page names the job and then the reason for this job is described in detailed with information on the how the job is done.  Do you know zookeepers may impersonate a vulture with a puppet to prevent a baby chick from becoming attached to a human as they prepare it for being released in the wild?  Do you know komondo dragon's can be trained to follow a red ball on a stick so the vet can give it a check up?  There's also different ways zookeepers do enrichment and provide daily health care to large animals.

The end of the book has a few pages with additional nonfiction features.  I enjoyed the list which felt like definition for zookeepers.  There's some information about zoo pros and cons.  A zoo timeline and a list of some top zoos in our world.  Each animal highlighted in the book has a nonfiction paragraph to help readers learn more facts. 

The illustrations in this book are meant to spend time with.  The cut and torn paper collage bring depth and detail.  I love how papers were chosen to show texture.  I'm always intrigued with paper collage and how realistic the animals look.

I'm joining Alyson at Kid Lit Frenzy for Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.  

Chris Butterworth Trio {Nonfiction Picture Book Wednesday}

Author Chris Butterworth and illustrator Lucia Gaggiotti are new to me and I am very thankful Candlewick Press sent me these copies to review.  These three books explore every day things in our lives with a fantastic pairing of blurbs, labels, and illustrations.  Each book pointed out things we use daily and fostered wondering for why or how.  They help the reader to stop and think.  They also take some complex ideas and visually offer explanation.  

One of my favorite pages in How Does My Home Work? is a two page spread showing all the different machines that need energy to make them work.  This is after a map/diagram showing wiring and pips for water in a home.  How Did That Get in my Lunchbox? shows various settings for food production; farms, dairies, and factories.  I think it's eye opening to students to think beyond going to a grocery store.  Hands down Where Did My Clothes Come From? is my favorite.  I purposefully left this book on our kitchen island one morning and both of my high school girls picked it up and kept talking to me about what they saw and read.  They each found fascinating tidbits about fabric.  My soon to be college fashion major was completely surprised to learn about silk and how it was made.  This book goes beyond sweaters and yarn.  Do you wonder where your jeans, soccer uniform, party dress, fleece jacket, and boots are made from?  I was also happy to see a blurb at the end about recycling clothes.

Each book ends with an author's note, illustrator's note, and bibliography.  I feel like Chris and Lucia are my friends because their notes help me understand why they wrote these books.  Each book has an index with specific words.  I think these will make great books to take one at a time and spend a week with.  I think it will be better to read it in smaller chunks to allow for lingering and discussion.

Thank you Alyson at Kid Lit Frenzy for hosting this weekly sharing.

The Bee Book {Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge}

The Bee Book by Charlotte Milner is a book filled with 22 topics/questions about bees and each topic/question has a two page spread.  The illustrations are done in warm hues and the paper is flat; not glossy and shiny which I think adds to the mood of this earthy topic.  I love all the nonfiction text features that are being used; maps, bold print, labels, cut aways, diagrams, numbers, charts, and drawn illustrations.  There's a lot of math sharing data and comparing numbers.  

While learning all about bees in general this book is also urging the reader to understand why we need to help the bees and what makes them an important creature for our environment.  One of my favorite pages illustrates this in a progression; bees are needed for crops, which bring us food, pollination helps our flowers which in turn helps our mammals, insects, and birds.  Bees are much more than creatures that make honey and sting you.  My heart tugged a bit as I read about the decline in bee population due to humans.  I think this two page spread will tug at my readers hearts.  Overall, I hope this book brings comfort to some readers that fear bees and their stingers.

Shopping for second grade nonfiction readers can be a bit tricky.  You need more information than an emergent reader and not too much that the reader becomes overwhelmed.  At first I was a bit worried there was a lot of information and then decided the text is organized with enough white space and line breaks we could easily find what we needed.  I think The Bee Book is just right for my second grade readers; especially in spring.  

Thank you Alyson at Kid Lit Frenzy for hosting this weekly sharing.

Mighty Jackie - The Strike Out Queen {Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge}

How did I not know who Mighty Jackie The Strike-Out Queen was?  I have two girls who play softball.  We have a small collection about softball heroes.  We are huge fans of the movie, A League of Their Own.  I'm grateful for my teammate who brought this book to me and said, "you will love this book."  She was right!  I'm so happy Marissa Moss told the story of Jackie Mitchell.  

Jackie Mitchell was a girl who played major league baseball and in 1931 struck out Baby Ruth and Lou Gehrig; baseball legends.  Jackie loved baseball as a little girl and faced stereotypical challenges growing up; girls didn't play baseball yet alone pitch baseballs.  Jackie's story shows readers strength, going against the grain, stepping outside typical gender roles in our society, and perseverance, practice pays off, and courage.

The actual account of April 2, 1931 makes this the perfect read aloud to be a baseball sports announcer.  I could see my students inch closer with inflection and urgency to find out what Jackie would do.  Unfortunately, after this big game Jackie was banded from playing major and minor league baseball.  She continued playing with minor leagues that were so small the commissioner didn't pay attention to them.  The illustrations by C. F. Payne matched the text and created empathy for each of my students.  They were shocked an event like this could happen in history.  They felt passion for women's rights and wanted Mighty Jackie to continue playing major league baseball.  

Thank you Alyson at Kid Lit Frenzy for hosting this weekly sharing.