[LM_NET] Hit: Book Recommendations

[Alison Gray <alisong8279@YAHOO.COM>]

Hi,
 
Can anyone recommend a non fiction book about an animal in the form of a story for 
2nd grade? Prefirably a picture book. We are discussing different ways non fiction 
books can be portrayed. Thank you for your help!
 
Alison
 
Thanks again everyone! 

Urban Roosts by Barbara Bash

Is this a House for Hermit Crab? By Megan McDonald.  I pair is with Eric Carle's A 
House for Hermit Crab which is fiction.

My students love Chameleon, Chameleon, by Joy Cowley.  It has amazing photographs 
of chameleons changing colors, finding new homes, and eating.  The best photo is a 
two page spread of the chameleon zapping his tongue out to grab a caterpillar.  The 
story is fairly simple--he looks around for food, doesn't see any, leaves his tree 
to find some, encounters other animals along the way, finds food, and makes a 
friend.  But it's the photography that really makes this book popular.
 
Here are three that came immediately to mind:
598.8 CHE
Cherry, Lynne. Flute's journey : the life of a wood thrush. 1st ed. San 
Diego:Harcourt Brace & Co, [1997].   
Note: A young wood thrush makes his first migration from his nesting ground in a 
forest preserve in Maryland to his winter home in Costa Rica and back again.   

577.69 KUR
Kurtz, Kevin and Powell, Consie. A day in the salt marsh. SylvanDell, [2007].
Note: Rhyming verse introduces readers to hourly changes in the salt marsh as the 
tide comes and goes.   

598.8 WIL
Willis, Nancy Carol. The robins in your backyard. Montchanin, DE: Cucumber Island 
Storytellers, [1996].   
Note: Describes a year in the life of a pair of robins as they build a nest, lay 
eggs, and care for their young.
 
Try the Mazee book about the hippo and turtle 
Runt by Marion Dane Bauer  bears in the wild and captivity. 
 
The Koko books are absoluely wonderful, especially Koko's Kitten.  Koko was the 
great ape that was taught to talk using sign language.  At some point, Koko, using 
sign, asked for a kitten.  Worried that she would accidentally hurt the kitten, 
they first tried to give her a stuffed kitten.  She kept insisting she wanted a 
kitten, and finally they did get her a fuzzy grey kitten, which Koko herself named 
"All Ball".  The stories about Koko and her kitten are in picture book format, and 
make wonderful reading, while being true.  Also, there are many stories of Jame 
Herriot, the Yorkshire veterinarian who published the best seller "All Creatures, 
Great and Small" that have been turned into picture books.  They are also excellent.
 
Mama : a true story in which a baby hippo loses his mama during the
tsunami, but finds a new home, and a new mama / Jeanette Winter. 
Owen & Mzee : the true story of a remarkable friendship / told by
Isabella Hatkoff, Craig Hatkoff, and Paula Kahumbu ; with photographs by
Peter Greste. 

Balto... or The Great Serum Race (with the Iditarod coming up they might be good 
choices
 
Brave Norman a true story
The Bravest Cat the true story of Scarlett
A Picture Book of Harriet Tubman (Black History)
The bravest Dog Ever the story of Balto
The Story of Ruby Bridges (Black History)
Freedom River (Black History)

There's a lot of good factual books told through narratives- for a while they were 
calling them faction )fiction and facts). John Himmelman is a CT author who does a 
nice job with it.

Most anything by Steve Jenkins should work.  I See a Kookabura is one of my 
favorites.  Animals in their habitats
 
Sam the Sea Cow by Francine Jacobs
 
Red-eyed Tree frog 
 
Rickie and Henri by Jane Goodall

Hero Cat by Eileen Spinelli

Owne and Mzee by Isabella Hatkoff

Knut by Isabella Hatkoff

Looking for Miza by Isabella Hatkoff
 
Cactus Hotel is about many animals in a desert habitat.  It always holds the
attention of my 1st and 2nd graders.  Another Title is Rhinoceros Mother.
Just two off the top of my head.


 

 
 


      

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