Nonfiction Monday --I like Weird Animals

Weird Birds by Carmen Bredeson. Berkeley Heights, New Jersey: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2010. Available now. or soon. Depends if you believe the coyyright date in the book (2010) or the publication date on www.enslow.com. (2009)

How Weird!
Well, that's just one more weird thing about this series called "I Like Weird Animals!"

Do you have an early elementary classroom full of curious kids? All eager to learn amazing (and weird) facts about nature around them? And about strange animals they never knew existed? This is the book for you.

What's inside?
-A full-page photograph of the animal on the right with four or five intriguing, descriptive sentences on the left.
-Nine animals/ birds/ sea creatures/ etc. per book.
-Vocabulary words to know.
-Table of Contents and an index.
-A list of (3) books where you can find more information.
-Several websites
-She dedicated the book to her weird siblings
-The books support the National Science Education Standards for K–4 life science.

These are not books for reports on animals. They're books to spark an interest and a need to read and find out more.

I have to confess that I have a connection to Enslow Publishers. They published seven biographies of mine. I stop by their booth every time I attend ALA, just to talk. One day I happened to mention to Mark Enslow that I had enjoyed another series of theirs and he thought there might be more Enslow series I would enjoy. A few weeks later the Lovely Lisa in Marketing sent two of the I Like Weird Animals! series to my library mailbox.

Then I took a good look at the author's name. (People never notice the author of nonfiction books. Comeon now, think about it. You don't remember them, do you?)
Ah Ha! I know that author. So I wrote her and quizzed her about the books.

I asked if she took the photographs herself?
No.
In her research she found many strange and wonderful creatures. The Enslow people looked for photographs of them. Some of the ones she wanted to write about had to be dropped because no photograph could be found.

Who do you think will enjoy reading these books?
"I wrote them primarily for second grade boys. That's why the word poop appears pretty often."

What was your vision for this series?
"The whole object was to find things that would make kids laugh and want to read more."


Other books in the I Like Weird Animals! series include:
Bomb-Factory Beetles and Other Weird Insects
Fainting Goats and Other Weird Mammals
Flying Geckos and Other Weird Reptiles
Hair-Shooting Tarantulas and Other Weird Spiders
Leafy Sea Dragons and Other Weird Sea Creatures

Descriptions of these books can be found on the Enslow Publishers' website.

For more weird and interesting children's books, hop on over here to see all of the Nonfiction Monday reviews.
-wendie old