Chameleon, Chameleon

Chameleon, Chameleon

Author Joy Cowley

Illustrated by Nic Bishop

Scholastic, 2005

32 Pages

Non Fiction Children’s book

                This is a great nonfiction book for the younger students in the classroom. Boys would really enjoy this book. I choose this book because I wanted to broaden my horizon on the books that I read.  In this story there is a lonely chameleon that goes on a sort walk through the wild to try and find food. During his walk he encounters several different animals some who are harmless and some that are dangerous to the poor chameleon.  On a search for food it shows how slowly and carefully the chameleon moves from tree to tree. The chameleon finds another tree but he encounters a guest at the top of the tree. Will this guest be friendly to the chameleon or not? You won’t know unless you read Chameleon, Chameleon.

                The illustrations in this book were photographs. The photographer Nic Bishop did a wonderful job capturing the up close essence of the chameleon and the changes he makes in his color. The pictures and text on the page varies from page to page. The text is friendly for students to read, and the pictures are bright in color. I think that this book did an excellent job of portraying how a chameleon looks as well as moves. I think that this book would appeal to students Kindergarten if it is read to them, and up to third or fourth grade. This book also has some great vocabulary words that can be tied in to a lesson.

                There are numerous classroom connections that can be made with this book. You can teach a Science lesson on Chameleons. The students can get together in groups and be given certain parts of the chameleon that they are to focus on. The different categories could be the camouflage effect they have, what they eat, how they travel, the characteristics of their skin.  The students can then come back to the class and discuss what they discovered about the chameleon. An Art/ Science connection could be you could have the students color a chameleon to blend into a certain project. The students could create a specific wildlife science and they have to hide a chameleon in the picture of where the chameleon would live based on the information that they have learned. Lastly the students can label a large chameleon chart. This will let the students discuss and discover all the different parts of the chameleon. This is great for students because it connects them visually and with text to something in real life. The possibilities that can go with Chameleon, Chameleon are endless and I think that this is definitely a book that I will add to my classroom library.