Review by Booklist Review
Reviewed with Claire Llewellyn's Duck0 . K-Gr. 3. With straightforward, succinct texts, these additions to the Starting Life series introduce children to the life cycle of familiar species in a picture-book format. Duck0 follows mallards from eggs to hatchlings to adults during a 12-month period. Tree0 describes the growth of an apple tree from seed to seedling to sapling to mature tree with fruit over the course of several years. The pages, made from extra-heavy stock, gradually increase in size, allowing for a tabbed effect on the right side of the book. As children flip each page, they'll discover that the picture on the left blends neatly with the illustration on the front end papers, giving the feel of full-page spreads. The brightly colored, photographic-style artwork is appropriately realistic and flexible enough to allow for inside and cut-away views. The pictures are generously captioned, but although obvious effort has been made to place captions on light areas of the art, the printed matter occasionally disappears within the picture. A glossary and a life-cycle summary conclude each of these volumes, which will be welcomed by browsers and report writers alike. Great books to set out alongside titles in the Watch Me Grow series, published by DK. --Kay Weisman Copyright 2004 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 3-These titles present the life cycles of a duck and an apple tree in lovely, painterly pictures and text. In the first book, proud mallard parents start out in a nest near a pond; eggs appear on the following spread, one in a cutaway showing an embryo chick's growth. Various predators threaten the hatchlings and, after six months, both male and female ducks are full grown and ready to migrate. Supplemental spreads on feeding in a pond, feathers, migrations, and courtship extend the information. From seed through the first six years of growth, the apple tree grows, matures, flowers, and produces fruit. Various denizens of the field cohabit at different times and in different seasons-snails threaten the sapling; nuthatches build a spring nest in the six-year-old tree; foxes, wasps, birds, and a squirrel feast on the autumn fruit. Pair this book with Gail Gibbons's The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree (Harcourt, 1984) and Apples (Holiday, 2000), Zoe Hall's The Apple Pie Tree (Blue Sky, 1996), and Johnny Appleseed biographies-those by Steven Kellogg (HarperCollins, 1988) and Reeve Lindbergh (Little, Brown, 1990) are excellent. The writing in both books is clear and direct and the child-enticing design-graduated pages, icons for each topic, illustrated glossaries, and the life cycle presented in a circle on the back endpapers-make these winners for all libraries and classrooms.-Dona Ratterree, New York City Public Schools (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
The life cycle of an apple tree, from a seed to bearing fruit, is straightforwardly discussed; sophisticated readers can learn from the ancillary information presented in smaller font throughout. The colorful illustrations resemble nature photos, but there are enough visual treats+extreme close-ups of bugs, glimpses of worms under the soil+to attract the attention of non+nature enthusiasts. Glos., ind. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
