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books on creatures in nature
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I am currently considering purchasing the following books:
The Burgess Animal Book for Children
The Burgess Bird Book for Children
Among the Forest/Meadow/Night/Pond People (four different books)
and a must buy in my opinion is SCM’s Jack’s Insects
I am having such a hard time deciding which ones we *should* have in our library and am actually tempted to get them all when considering the recommended grade level for these.
What do you all think? I don’t want to waste money of course, but the description on all of these seems so fun for the children. I especially like how the “Among…” series uses the stories to build character.
Thanks for your time. 😉
I just had a similar list. I had to ask myself how much I though we’d actually read. I was able to narrow my list way down for this year, leaving the rest for next year. They do all seem like good books but I knew we couldn’t read them all this year.
Hope this helps.
Cindy
How old are your children again? I don’t have Jack’s Insects yet but I know my kids would love it. I did read all the Dillingham Pearson books with my children when they were younger–5 or 6. They loved them! They are very sweet gentle stories. You can “check them out” and try out a story or two as they are all available online. If your children are more in the age of 7-9, you might look at the Burgess books, as they have more information and some basic classification.
One option, especially since they are online, would be to read the Among The . . . books as just enjoyable read-aloud stories if you wanted to focus on one of the others for “school”
Do remember, you probably won’t be doing this for just one year–there will be other years and you don’t have to do it all this year! I know that’s hard to remember when there are so many delicious books out there . . . LOL
Michelle D
Burgess & Pierson are fav’s in our home. We read them daily. We’re collecting as many of the Burgess books as we can find. My DD’s (6 & 7) ask for them over and over. It’s so funny to see their reaction when one comes off the shelf. They run to the couch and wait, bouncing and excited. They get so caught up in the suspense or silliness of the stories (jaws literally hanging open or peels of giggles). There are a lot of them, so I try to pick up as many as I can at yard sales or from friends.
The “Among the…” books are MY favorites. We just don’t tire of them. This series in particular has taught them a lot of nature knowledge. I hear them offer tidbits of information when we’re outside exploring that they learned from one of these stories. Excellent character development resources as well.
If you DO choose to get them all, I don’t think you’ll disappointed. Even when I think they’re just not able to sit through another book, they’ll run and grab one of them and ask for “just one more story mama”.
I’m saving for my Jack’s Insects and look forward to reading that one!
And if anyone has other resources along this vein, I’d love to hear about them!
Speaking of Jack’s Insects, I see that it is recommended for grades 4-6. Would that be just for the reading level? I would like to read this aloud to my almost 8 yo ds and 13 yo. ds Would this be too old for my 8 yo and too young for my 13 yo….or better yet maybe just perfect? 🙂 Thanks for letting me know.
To add to more book angst is another series from 1901, called the Eyes and no Eyes series. It looks VERY informative! It uses children’s observations to tell the facts w/in the series.
I know it doesn’t help to have the choices of SO many good books!
Rachel
csmamma, as with most good living books, the younger children can pick up a lot from listening to it read aloud. However, in this case, the recommended grade level might also be referring to emotional stability as well as being old enough to enjoy some of the (not in a bad way) “adult humor” that the author throws in. Examples . . .
Have you gotten to the part in the free sample chapter (chapter 9) where the walking stick comes in “parenthetically”? I love that part, but the younger kids probably won’t even catch it. I’m sure they would benefit from the parts they do catch, but they would probably catch more and enjoy it even more when they’re older.
There’s also a part where the Great Golden Digger Wasp feeds the Cicada to her larvae, and the Cicada is still alive. It’s not presented in a gross way or anything, but some sensitive little first grade child might have nightmares over that one, you know?
So I’m thinking maybe those two reasons are why Charlotte waited until 4th grade, but I don’t know for sure.
As far as children older than 6th grade, I know how much I learned and enjoyed the story as I typed it, so I don’t think there’s any problem with letting older students read it.
You have all been so very helpful. I have two preschoolers, 2nd grader, and a 4th grader. All of these fall in line with their ages and it’s nice to have your feedback. My biggest problem is fear that a “delicious book” (I love your wording, Michelle) that I really want will not be available when we want to ‘schedule’ it. This is why I sometimes (not alot) buy a book that is not going to be scheduled for the current schoolyear. Your responses will better assist me in making a final decision – I appreciate your time. 🙂 Hugs to all! Rebecca
For what it’s worth after all these other useful replies….I read The Burgess Book of Birds to a 6yo girl last year, and she loved it. We didn’t try any narration last year. I’m sure she didn’t absorb it all, but she enjoyed it all and did learn some. She was excited when I told her that I planned to read the Burgess Book of Animal Stories this year. I bet you’re in for some fun, whatever you choose!
I just had to comment on how much we love Jacks Insects! It is SUCH a delightful read!
I can understand now why Charlotte recommended it for older students- the chapters are a bit lengthy for my younger ds. However, it is by far one of the best living nature books we’ve come across. My boys seem to enjoy the fact that its funny too- in a serious sort of way (you know like when Jack asks the Great Winged Butterfly what it was like as a caterpilar.. LOL… I’m laughing just thinking about it). 🙂
Also we came a cross a Burgess book at a used library book sale titled “Buster Bears Twins” and my newly turned 8 year old absolutely LOVES this book. He never wants me to stop reading and actually enjoys narrating with this book. This is the first of Burgess that we’ve read and I’m sure you can guess I’m out to get more. 🙂
Thank you ,live2inspire, for getting this discussion going a couple of months ago.
Blessings to you and yours!
Hi! I just wanted to mention a couple of very old books that are in the public domain for those of you who don’t mind printing books online! They of course are free, and beautiful— compared to books today-as they use beautiful language and it isn’t dumbed down like alot of books now.
Tommy Smith’s Animals, Beautiful Birds, by Edmund Selous are two of our favorite books.
The Bee People, Flowers and their Friends, and all of Margaret Morley’s books. They are fantastical and go from the Bee or flower’s perspective, kind of similar to Jack’s Insects in that regard.
Of course they are all in the public domain which means you can download, print, and read them for free.
They are all on google books. Link:
http://books.google.com/bkshp?hl=en&tab=wp
EXCEPT for Edmund Selous’ Tommy Smith’s animals. You will need to download it from Open Library. Link:
http://openlibrary.org/b/OL7089587M
Just a couple of MORE books for you!
Sincerely,
Kristal
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