What do you do with a tail like this?

What do you do with a tail like this?

Author and Illustrations by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

HMH Books for Young Readers 2008

32 pages

Nonfiction Children’s book

                This book is a wonderful informational as well as critical thinking book for younger students. I chose this book because of the catchy title. In this story the readers are given a question such as “What do you do with a mouth like this?” The readers then are shown pictures of certain animal mouths, on the next page they are then shown what animal it is and what they use that certain body part for. This book is a friendly way for students to be exposed to new and different animals that they are not used to seeing. Have you ever wondered what a where a whales ears are? Or what’s cool about a horned lizard? If these interest you, you have got to read What do you do with a tail like this?

                The pictures in this story are made by using a cut and paste collage. I think that they did a good job putting the animals together. The pictures are very realistic, but in a kid friendly way. The text and pictures are spread out across the page. The text goes upside down, sideways and in circles. The pictures also go from one page to another and they even go off of the page. I think that this book would be a good book for younger children to read, once they have gotten the concept of print down. I think that otherwise it might be hard for them to understand why the print moves all over the page.

                The classroom connections with this story could be science, vocabulary, and writing. A Science connection could be having the students pick an animal that they like the most out of the story and then describing it. This builds critical thinking as well as allows them to pick something that interests them. The students can draw a picture of the animal that they have chosen, or could even just write different things that they found interesting about it. A vocabulary lesson could be very beneficial with this story. There are numerous words in this story that the students can break down, define, and use in their classroom conversations. In the back of the book there is a glossary of the animals that are discussed as well as some great vocabulary words. The students also can pick out some of the words that they have questions about and then you can have a classroom discussion. Writing also can go with this story. The students can write about two different animals in the story that are alike or different and tell things about them that supports their idea. The teacher can pick how many different things that the students need to write about depending on the grade level.