Back to Reality

Here I was thinking that I'd not yet written about non-fiction works, only to see that it was my subject in a post eight months ago!  However, in light of recent book-choices in my home, it bears repeating.  My kid loves books about the actual world.

Pre-K has been focusing on changes-- like caterpillars to butterflies and seeds to plants.  So, naturally, the tadpole to frog change was one that my daughter has heard among her metamorphosis studies.  Being a librarian means that she mentions interests, and I pull books.  It isn't in the official job description of "mom" or "librarian," but it may as well be.

So, I brought home a book called Growing Frogs by Vivian French/ Illustrated by Alison Bartlet, and she chose that as the bedtime story for two nights in a row.  It tells of a girl whose mom helps her tend frog spawn at home, and the nature facts (which are in a different font) emphasize the importance of respecting the ecological status of the frogs by only taking spawn from man-made ponds and by returning adult frogs to their pond of origin. The story and facts work well together and focus on both the development of tadpoles/frogs as well as how humans can interact with the process.  However, the illustrations are bright but simple.  While cute, I wanted photographs.

So, I brought home Tadpoles and Frogs by Anna Milborne.  I like how this book expanded on the one we read previously.  It talked about the changes that frog spawn-->tadpoles-->frogs experience.  However, it also talked about a variety of types of frogs, camouflage, hibernation, and eating adaptations.  While there were some illustrations, many colorful and detailed photographs also grace the pages.  (I know that I can count on books that are published by Usborne to have awesome graphics).  There is a table of contents, glossary, and index, but the text is sparse enough that with a focused kid in the upper preschool range, it can be done in a single sitting.  With a bookmark, it probably would work over a few days for the shorter-attention-spanned kid.  While we did read it in a single sitting, I measure my daughter's jump as we took a break from the text to experiment as suggested in the text.  (Yay for kinesthetic learning!  Moving rocks brain cells!)

Even though Milborne's writing is geared to early readers, it is advanced enough in its vocabulary and content that I felt okay having this be a read-aloud.  (I tend to avoid early reader books ever since I heard Jim Trelease speak against parents reading those to children.  I heard him talk in Las Vegas, NV, in 2005.  However, in instances like what I just stated, I will read them to my daughter).

So, if your kid is curious (and really, what kid ISN'T curious?), do not be afraid to jump the line away from stories into fact-land.  Non-fiction uses words that fiction doesn't, and it is another bridge to expanding awareness through books.