Weeky book shelf 11/19

 Reading to himself:

Fiorenzo Faccini is the author of four great non-fiction books about four early hominid species:  A Day With Homo Habilis, A Day With Homo Erectus, A Day With Neanderthal Man, A Day With Homo Sapiens. The books offer a lot of factual information about the highlighted species along with a realistic fiction story and beautiful, vivid illustrations. The books are dated, and they are a little thick as far as information goes. I have seen some parents complain about the books being too detailed or not interesting enough for young children, but I think that depends entirely on the child. Calvin loves them.

Mega Beasts is a pop-up book that belongs to the Encyclopedia Prehistorica trilogy by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart. We own all three of the books because we were lucky enough to stumble upon them (in excellent shape even) at library used book sales. Sabuda's books are always beautifully made and lots of fun, and the art of these three in particular is fantastic. Great fun facts, lots of little things to try out and see. Calvin can't get enough of any of these.

Although not really a book, I thought I'd mention the Highlights magazine here because it does have a number of enjoyable stories in it, and because Calvin enjoys reading them. He does still prefer a book, but getting mail just for himself is fun, and the magazine provides a number of small challenges, like learning some words in Spanish, and some other activities as well, a favorite of which is the finding hidden pictures game. I love that he gets mail, and that this magazine is still completely without ads, which cannot be said of many kids' magazines out there anymore.

Also not a book, but Dover's History Coloring Books are a fun way to read about historical, or prehistorical, subjects. Each page exhibits a large image to color as well as a paragraph of information about the subject of the image.

This is a pretty short list this week, not because we haven't been reading, but because I'm having trouble keeping my chin above water. With so many things going on this time of year sometimes it's hard to keep track of them all. There has been plenty of Magic Tree House reading an play around here, and Calvin and Jon are still reading The Arabian Nights together every night.

Weekly book shelf 11/5, Prehistoric mammals

 Evolution, by Douglas Palmer, is timeline of the evolution of life on earth. It's mainly a picture book, every two-page spread a beautiful rendering of an era in time, with a timeline stretched across the top of the page, and facts about the living things in short paragraphs at the bottom. The information is really too brief to be anything but interest piquing, but the pictures are very much worth the book, and the information at least helps identify things so you can look them up elsewhere. We love this book.

Top 10 Prehistoric Beasts, by Andrew Goldsmith. A list of the "top 10" prehistoric beasts. This book is extremely unimpressive. Calvin enjoyed that the pictures used seem to have been taken from the Walking with Prehistoric Monsters videos that he loves so much, but other than that it held little interest for him. There was no mention of how the "top 10" beasts were selected, and the information provided was scant, if not incorrect even in some places. Also, I found the flashy colors and multitude of fonts and font sizes to be distracting, or even distressing. Calvin really didn't spend much time on this one.

Woolly Mammoth, by Ron Wilson, is a cute realistic fiction that follows a young mammoth through his first year of life—eating on the plains, migrating south for winter, returning in the spring, and then mating. It's an older book and out of print, but we borrowed it from our library. This is one of those great animal stories that does not personify but showcases natural behavior in an enjoyable way. Calvin read this one over and over again.

Sabertooths and the Ice Age, by Mary Pope Osborne. A Magic Tree House non-fiction companion that I'm sure needs no explanation, no introduction. These books are definitive by any means, but I find them to be great companions to the fiction stories, and Calvin loves them.

Sunset of the Sabertooth, by Mary Pope Osborne. Magic Tree House. Calvin loves it, of course.