The Journey: Stories of Migration (edition 2006)

This illustrated nonfiction text tells the stories of six different types of animals that migrate, what Rylant calls “remarkable travelers.” The animals inhabit the seas, the land, and the air. They live in places warm and cold. Woven throughout each story are color-rich realistic paintings, which sometimes give an up-close look at the animals and sometimes provide a pulled-back big picture of what migration looks like. The text is oversized, and, on average, there’s no more than one hundred words or so per spread. An individual story could be read — say, the one on monarchs during a class effort to hatch and release the butterflies. Or the stories could be read together to study underlying themes: what are the similarities and the differences between the migrations of these animals. The book does a beginning job of offering this type of conclusion; students could use it as a launching point for their own writing. Certainly, the book could serve as a mentor text for factual writing. This book has applications in classrooms from elementary through middle school. ( )

This beautifully illustrated book tells astonishing stories of migration. Students will learn of the amazing journeys of locusts, whales, eels, monarch butterflies, caribou, and Arctic terns. The book is well-researched and written in a straightforward, conversational style.

Curriculum: a great book to use for science units on animals and their adaptations.

Rylant, C. & Davis, L. (2006). The journey: Stories of migration. New York: Blue Sky Press.

This book was all about the migration of different animals, including Monarch butterflies. It mostly dealt with monarch butterflies. It explained the story of the lifestyle of monarch butterflies. The pictures were truly wonderful; they depicted beautiful butterfly scenes, drawn by the illustrator. I also learned about butterfly trees; before this book I had never known about butterfly trees. So pretty! It talked about what happens to butterflies throughout the different seasons. I think this book is a life cycle nonfiction book because it focuses on the migration periods of a few different animals lives. ( )

Summary:
This book is a very informational book about different typed of species that migrate and why they do so. It talks about Locusts, which are really grasshoppers, and why they migrate. A few others were the whales, the eels, butterflies, caribu. A variety of different species, how long they travel or how far, all the questions are answered in this book.

Personal Reaction:
I really enjoyed reading this book, I have learned a few things about these animals myself. It had some great pictures in here, it was very descriptive also.

Classroom Extension Ideas:

1. You could take the kids to a field trip to a zoo and talk about some animals that migrate, or even just to an open field to look at butterflies in the spring.
2. Depending on the age group you could have them look up an another animal that migrates and have them do a little report on it. ( )

This is a more advanced picture book that entails the journeys of several different types of species that migrate. The book is very interesting, and on a higher reading level. This would be a great book for an older student who is interested in butterflies, whales, birds, or any other being that migrates. ( )