On a recent library trip, one of the girls pulled Caroline Arnold’s African Animals off the shelf and, charmed by the elephant family on the front, wanted to take it home. Both girls enjoyed the lovely pictures of animals as well as the fun facts they learned. I particularly like the format of the book. Caroline Arnold divides her discussion of animals by habitat: grasslands, forest, desert. Each animal she discusses gets a large picture and a paragraph or two of text. The final pages discuss the need for conservation of African animals’ habitats. There are enough interesting facts to engage an older child, but the descriptions are brief enough to hold the attention of a younger child. Even 3yo C was willing to listen rather than simply look.
This week’s Non-Fiction Monday Round-Up is at Charlotte’s Library.
That looks like a nice one!
Have you seen Caroline Arnold’s newer “World” series? Panda’s World, Wombat’s World, etc? I like the art in those.
This sounds like a winner, in a field where it’s a tricky line between simplifying the idea of “Africa” and wisely educating . . . I’ll have to look for this one to see if it would be a good visual aid when I lapse into my tales of “running for my life from an elephant” and other such Zambia-life accounts 🙂