Children's Books discussion

Cheryl wrote: "Hello, Bugs! is a board book that shows the littlest children that tiny critters are cute & friendly.

Love this one because it's for the littlest, and is just exactly educational e..."

Awww, I got such a big smile when I saw this post. Thanks for reminding me about this sweet little book. My boys loved this style book when they were babies -- the high-contrast artwork is great for young eyes. We have the duo's Hello, Animals! and it got a lot of use :-)

(From the most recent Prairie Ecologist entry, a photo with this caption:

"Most of the 4,000 or so bee species in North America are solitary (single females build and provision a nest). The numerous males of those solitary bee species don't have a nest because their only job is to try to intersect females and interrupt their foraging long enough to mate with them. At night, those males just find anyplace they can to sleep. Often, that includes inside a flower, especially if it provides a little compartment that helps hide the bees.... ")

I just learned of the very cool Camouflaged Looper caterpillar, which disguises itself by sticking bits of the plant or flower it's sitting, on to itself. Children, low to the ground and sharp-eyed, might be able to find some in their garden or park.

I checked out, hoping to learn more, Caterpillars, Bugs and Butterflies: Take-Along Guide but it's a more superficial book, with no index. However, it does have one thing - an activity to help you calibrate the crickets in your area to a thermometer, to then be able to check the temperature outside without a thermometer.

Thank you, Cheryl, for the great comments! Love to keep learning new things :-)

I've not read this yet, but really enjoyed the other two Owen Davies books we've read and imagine this one will be good: Bonkers about Beetles.

The Case of the Vanishing Caterpillar: A Gumboot Kids Nature Mystery Adorable illustrations (photographs of needle-felted creatures)! The "mystery" of what happened to the caterpillar in the garden won't baffle any children who already know the caterpillar-to-butterfly marvel, but it's still an entertaining little story and provides some "Field Notes" at the back with further information on butterflies (including diagram of the different parts) and a bit more about the butterfly's life cycle. Good for the kindergarten set.

Monarch Butterflies: Explore the Life Journey of One of the Winged Wonders of the World


Excellent combination of informative text and similarly informative and lushly descriptive images, all about monarch butterflies, their life cycle and their mass migrations from Canada and the USA to central Mexico (and also showing threats to monarchs and how to help protect them, to help with conservation), highly recommended although I do wish Ann Hobbie would provide not just online resources but also book titles and that I do not consider it environmentally sound and acceptable to promote and encourage children taking monarch caterpillars from the wild to raise at home,

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I liked The Spider's Gift: A Ukrainian Christmas Story a bit better than Shirley Climo's set in Germany The Cobweb Christmas (although the stories are rather similar with the spiders helping with the Christmas tree) and mostly because I find the illustrations for The Spider's Gift: A Ukrainian Christmas Story much more to my tastes (but both stories are lovely and nicely arachnid friendly).

The Spider's Gift: A Ukrainian Christmas Story

A lovely story of kindness, of sharing, of not really needing money to make a happy Christmas and also showing the importance of being kind to spiders (of appreciating arachnids) is The Spider’s Gift A Ukrainian Christmas Story and with Eric A. Kimmel's engagingly emotional but also never exaggerated or artificial feeling penmanship and Katya Krenina's warm acrylic illustrations providing a delightfully wonderful combination of words and artwork and totally making me smile (a story that feels both folkloric and also realistic and where text and images really nicely manage to reflect and mirror one an other, and yes indeed, Kimmel incorporating Ukrainian words and many specifically Ukrainian Christmas details into his story, this for me ups my rating for The Spider’s Gift A Ukrainian Christmas Story from four to solidly five stars).


https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Manybooks wrote: "I liked The Spider's Gift: A Ukrainian Christmas Story a bit better than Shirley Climo's set in Germany The Cobweb Christmas (although the stories are rather similar w..."

I'm so glad you posted about this one. I read it ages ago and forgot to do so here. It does have gorgeous illustrations. I'm a fan of both books.

Kathryn wrote: "Manybooks wrote: "I liked The Spider's Gift: A Ukrainian Christmas Story a bit better than Shirley Climo's set in Germany The Cobweb Christmas (although the stories ar..."

I like both stories as well but I do like the illustrations a bit more for The Spider's Gift: A Ukrainian Christmas Story (and appreciate the short author's note).