Richard Spilsbury

I picked this up because I noticed a picture of a bass clarinet while I was checking for damage, and I just wanted to look at the bass clarinets. Now that I see what the book is, though, I'd like to find others in the series. I can't imagine that very many children would read these books before deciding on an instrument to play—which happens as early as fourth or fifth grade—but I think that's a shame, because there's a lot of interesting information here. Lots of pictures, a very short show more history of the instrument, and spotlights of famous musicians and pieces that feature it (for the clarinet, of course, it was "Rhapsody in Blue," by George Gershwin). I'm hoping our library has more of the series. show less

This book, about "Terrifying Tornadoes," has everything in it that older elementary students would want to know about tornadoes. This text has so many extra features that would be great for teaching students about glossaries, photos, captions, bolded headings, and many other informational text features. It should be used as a resource book for students in 3-4th grade and up, as it has some harder vocabulary and is pretty lengthy. I even learned a lot about tornadoes that I did not know show more before and students will easily learn so much as well. show less

I would never read this book aloud as it is chalk full of facts and the children would get bored easily. But i would keep it in the classroom because some children would really love this book because of its wonderful pictures.

Summary: This book is all about droughts. It goes into detail about what it is, what causes it, where it happens, and what happens during it. There are also three case studies about the drought in Eastern Australia, the United States, and Ethiopia. This book also answers a few questions people may have about droughts: who helps, can they be predicated, can people prepare for them, and can they be prevented. In the back of the book there is a glossary, an index, and a page that gives the show more reader more sources to read about droughts.

Review: This books main theme was informing the reader about droughts. I thought this book was a great read because it gave a lot of information on droughts and it also gave multiple examples of droughts that have occurred throughout the world. The book was very organized; there was a little box specifically for drought facts, all of the pictures were labeled, and important words were bolded. Each page also had a main topic/header on what the page was going to be about so the reader could easily skip to the page they wanted to learn about. There were also a lot of visuals that helped amplify the information that was being given to the reader. I thought this book touched on a lot of different factors about droughts and would be a great resource for anyone to use. Overall, the main message of the book was clear and did not leave questions unanswered. show less