Biggest, Strongest, Fastest

I read this book with my first graders in my internship and absolutely loved it. It showcased a different animal on each page and gave fun and interesting facts that many people would not know about each different animal. The pictures were great and very detailed, and the book kept my attention throughout it's entirety. Informational and nonfiction books can sometimes become a tad boring and tedious to read, but this book did an amazing job of making readers want to turn the page to find out more unique qualities about other animals. For example, on one page the book drew the actual size of a certain type of spider found in another country. It was HUGE (yuck!). While it made me cringe, I know the students loved having a visual of what show more the real size of the spider was. This book is specifically facts about animals and there is no main idea. show less

The pages of this interesting picture book describe some of the record holders in the animal world like the strongest and the smallest. This is kind of two books in one. The first is simple sentences describing the record and the creature such as "The smallest bird is the bee hummingbird." reading the book like this is appropriate for really little children who don't have the attention span for more text. But on each page is another couple of sentences that give more information as well as a silhouette of a human next to the creature for comparison.

The illustrations are torn and cut paper collages and the craftsmanship is striking. There is a lit of beautiful detail. I was especially enamored of the delicate torn tissue paper that made show more up the hair on a spider's legs. My only problem is that I wasn't fond of the illustrator's color choices. For example, the giraffe is on a plain teal background which clashes horribly and gives a discordant effect rather than a breathtaking vista.

I found the book very interesting and informative and the illustrations beautifully crafted but something just wasn't quite right. 3.5 stars. show less

The pages of this interesting picture book describe some of the record holders in the animal world like the strongest and the smallest. This is kind of two books in one. The first is simple sentences describing the record and the creature such as "The smallest bird is the bee hummingbird." reading the book like this is appropriate for really little children who don't have the attention span for more text. But on each page is another couple of sentences that give more information as well as a silhouette of a human next to the creature for comparison.

The illustrations are torn and cut paper collages and the craftsmanship is striking. There is a lit of beautiful detail. I was especially enamored of the delicate torn tissue paper that made show more up the hair on a spider's legs. My only problem is that I wasn't fond of the illustrator's color choices. For example, the giraffe is on a plain teal background which clashes horribly and gives a discordant effect rather than a breathtaking vista.

I found the book very interesting and informative and the illustrations beautifully crafted but something just wasn't quite right. 3.5 stars. show less

This engaging informational teaches children about the various animals in the world. All of these animals are different, but share one common thing, they hold a record for something. You have the largest animal, the blue whale v.s. the smallest, the Etruscan shrew. "Animals live all around us. They crawl, walk, run, hop, swim, and fly. Some animals are too small to see without a microscope, others like the blue whale are bigger than a house." With the nice creative drawings and the side bar drawings, the children get to visualize just how unique these animals are. There were two pictures that even caught my eye as a college student. The picture of the ant holding up 5 ants compared to the human holding one, and the shrew who was tiny show more enough to fit on a teaspoon. Imagine being a child and discovery facts like this. This book was an amazing book to teach children about different animals which was the big idea of this story show less

This is a book I often read to the little boy I babysit for and he really loves it. I love the illustrations, which are realistic yet colorful. I also enjoy the part at the bottom of each page where the animals weight, speed, or strength are compared to that of a man. This is a great way to teach children about animals. The purpose of this story is to inform children about the traits of animals in a fun way!

In the story Biggest, Strongest, Fastest it teaches children about the different extremes in nature. It also uses illustrations to show comparisons between the size of the animal and a human which helps children to understand how big or small something is. There is an order to how the animals are presented and there are some great words that could be used to help expand children's vocabularies. Children love seeing what is the biggest, smallest, strongest and fastest of things and this book does a good job using that format to teach about different animals.

This book had really unique art, it would be fun to have the kids make art projects with It would be good to pair with math as well, and calculate the size of the animals. I really like that the book gives size comparisons with humans. They could model this strategy and show how to compare their hands with different objects.