Martha Shapp

I thought this would be a pleasant science/social studies book for early readers (100 word vocabulary) but after reading it, I decided to let it go. It seemed designed to give children an aversion to autumn. After discussing the fact that there are four seasons and some people "like fall best of all", it immediately informs us that fall is "when you are back in school after summer vacation". On the next page, you swap out summer clothes for warmer clothes, and the little boy looks pleased with his new sweater, but immediately following that, the "days get shorter ... you can't play outdoors very long after school" and then comes the frost and "the flowers are dead". After that discouraging beginning it would be hard to recover a sense of the joy of autumn (and it really is my favourite season, but here, I'm just not feeling it.) The information about the trees changing colour doesn't really help because the whole book is printed in a rusty brown colour which doesn't do justice to fall leaves, and the information about birds flying south and frogs burrowing into the mud tends to reinforce the idea that fall is not something to be embraced. There are some pages that are more positive, but by that point in the book I was already convinced that fall was irredeemable. Perhaps with a few more words at their disposal the authors could have conveyed more enthusiasm, but this is really a slightly depressing book.… (mere)

This is a very informative book about animal's homes. It talks about different animals and where they make their homes. Some animals like the woodchuck lives under ground. and if an enemy comes in one door the woodchuck can go out the other door. Birds build their own nests in trees. some animals live in holes in trees. And some animals of course, live in peoples homes.

This is a cute book. My daughter found some of the homes quite interesting. She enjoyed learning about these animals unique homes.

This is a good book to have the class read and draw a picture of their home and talk about the differences and similarities in where they live and the animals live.… (mere)