Giada Francia

Anyone who knows me, knows that my perennial complaint about books featuring animals is that they never accurately show food chains. Cute owls hanging out with their natural prey, sentimentalized pigs on farms that produce meat, etc. It drives me nuts! Kids can handle the natural life cycles of the world, it’s adults who have the problem with facts!

So this book, although the novelty aspect was a little problematic, was balm to my soul. The whole thing is basically things eating other things. The book opens vertically and you unfold the pages to show the food chains. The first spread gives a basic overview of food chains and then each page shows two creatures, one proclaiming “I will eat you!”. The pages fold out, showing an unexpected predator joining the mix. A big fish and little fish are joined by an even bigger fish, a mouse is ready to eat a beetle, but is being chased by a snake who in turn is followed by an owl. The sequences continue to the very last page, which has an array of every creature in the book and a label for each.

The back of the flaps add some lovely background to the following picture, and the stylized illustrations are attractive while still being identifiable. The pages are a sturdy paper, not as thick as a board book but stronger than the average page. This isn’t something I’d want to put in the general collection, due to the many folds, but I can see it working well in a special collection or one of my storytime kits.

Verdict: A unique and interesting book, useful for caregivers who want to teach about food chains or kids who are interested in nature.

ISBN: 9780823440313; This edition published 2018 by Holiday House; Borrowed via inter-library loan… (mere)

Little Red Riding Hood is about a young girl who wishes to travel through the woods to her sick grandmother’s cottage, reluctantly her mother agrees. Despite her mother’s instructions to not talk to strangers and go straight there Little Red Riding Hood wanders and speaks to the Big Bad Wolf, not realizing she gave the location of her ill grandmother. Before she could reach the cottage the Wolf had beat her there and consumed her grandmother whole and lay in wait for her as well. Upon entering the cottage she is consumed by the Wolf. In an ironic change of events a hunter stumbles upon the situations killing the Wolf and freeing Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.
Of course everyone has heard this fairytale a time or two growing up. I always loved it due to its farfetched nature and comical illustrations. I was always a fan of the books in which animals became main characters, of course this is very common in fairytales. Overall, I like this book and think it is a good way to bring up the topic of listening to your elders for your own safety in a way that children can wrap their minds around.
I think there are so many different ways in which to tie this book into the classroom. I think following elder’s instructions is an important thing to take away from this book; therefore, it should be worked into the assignment. I think asking children to reflect on a time they didn’t listen to their parents and something negative came of it is a good journal prompt. I also remember reading this book as a child, I am not sure in which grade, and making wanted posters. This allowed us to be creative and discuss the idea of using descriptive words in order to help pick an individual out of a crowd.… (mere)