Robin Page (1)

A veritable who's who of the animal kingdom shows off its moves. Each spread features one action demonstrated by two distinct animals. (Both a whale and an armadillo swim. Both a crocodile and a snake slither.) Each animal, in turn, performs two different actions. (A polar bear both floats and slides.) The clever layout introduces a pleasing element of suspense and gives the book a page-turning momentum. The paper collage illustrations depict the animals in realistic detail with rich show more textures and bold colors.

It's a read-aloud romp for all ages: with the help of caregivers babies can enjoy movements and sounds that mimic the animals, toddlers can act out the motions with their hands or whole body, and older kids can have fun predicting what each creature will do next. Many of the animals are identified at a level of specificity (a gibbon, a jacana, a blue whale, a jumping spider) that's sure to inspire curious young scientists, and the brief appendix of facts offers a springboard to further zoological inquiry.

Song pairings: "The wheels on the bus," "Polar bear, polar bear, turn around" show less

In this Caldecott Honor book Steve Jenkins introduce in a playful and interactive way to many animal parts that have been adaptations to their ways of living. Love how author shows the parts with a question for stimulate kids analytical thinking. His colored handmade paper collages, a trademark of his artwork, are exquisite in detail, texture and color, adding dimension with each overlapped shape. Bonus information about each animal follows at the end.

Time to eat by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

Steve Jenkins and Robin Page have produced another excellent nonfiction book with their trademark paper collage illustrations. This small book, 8x8, is one of a set of three, Time to Eat, Time to Sleep, and Time for a Bath. Time to Eat has three threads of text; short, bold exclamatory sentences “Not shoots and leaves again!” and a simple sentence or brief paragraph about the animal, “The giant panda chews on bamboo shoots for twelve hours a show more day.” The book has a simple introduction about the variety in animal diets and despite its small size features a surprising number of animals, including a chipmunk, toad, anaconda, pelican, blue whale, dung beetle, ostrich, and more. The book ends with a pictorial list of all the animals and further information on each one.

Verdict: Like most of Jenkins and Page’s work, this is a great nonfiction read-aloud for young children and an informative book for older readers. I would especially recommend buying and reading all three books together in this trilogy.

ISBN: 978-0547250328; Published March 2011 by Houghton Mifflin; Borrowed from the library; Purchased for the library show less

This book gave the reader interesting facts about different kinds of animals and showed us what was special about many animals as well. It showed us what the tail of a scorpion does or what the eyes of a hawk are for. I really enjoyed reading 'What do you do with a tail like this' for many different reason. I really enjoyed the fact that the book was interactive in the text. Before introducing the animals on the next page, the book would ask questions like "what do you do with a nose like show more this?" giving the children who are reading it an opportunity to think and answer while learning new information. At the end of the book, they also give you more information about each animal that they introduced which gives the reader more opportunity to learn if they are more advanced. The illustrations in the book also added a lot of value to the story because it gave the reader a clear picture of what the animals actually look like and not just a cartoon version of the animals like are in most children's books. show less