Five Children’s Non-Fiction Books

I’m finally getting to the stack of Cybils non-fiction books that have been sitting on my library cart since JMP was here. I’m fairly indifferent about most of them but I was pleasantly surprised by one…

When I have a stack of these, I usually read them in a very specific order — the ones I suspect I’ll like least, I read first. The one I have the most hope for, I will save for last. This is usually a good strategy because I’m not comparing books I’m inclined to not like with books I was pretty sure I would like. But, sometimes none of the books turns out to be what I’d expected. This was one of those times.

I started with Dolphin Baby because I don’t usually like sea creature books, particularly about dolphins. Too cute. They’re cute enough without any forced prose to try and make them cuter. This one — pretty much perfect. Nice illustrations. Information about dolphins was presented well. Not a lot of cute mommy baby, look how adorable they are stuff. This ended up being my favorite of the batch.

Next, Nic Bishop’s Snakes. I like Nic Biship but his books are all pretty much the same — great photos, basic info, same ole, same ole. That’s not a bad thing, but I do not like snakes at all. I made it through without looking too closely at the photos, a hard thing to do with a Nic Bishop book, and I don’t think I’ll have snake-like nightmares. If you need a book with great snake photos, this is your book. I don’t need that. Hope never to see it again, but I heartily recommend it to you if your kids are snake-crazy.

Then I read Island: A Story of Galapagos because I expected to find it ok but nothing to get excited about and that’s pretty much what happened. It does a nice job of explaining how species’ adapt to their surroundings. Finches with small beaks didn’t live long enough to pass that trait along, finches with larger beaks survived so they passed that trait along. Insect eating iguanas evolved to eat algae. Cormorants don’t need to fly so their wings are underdeveloped. Nicely done. I’d have liked it more with stronger illustrations, I think.

Then there’s Looking at Lincoln. How can you not like a book about Lincoln? That’s why I saved it for the end. But this one — gah. Throwing in things like Did Mr & Mrs Lincoln call each other cutesy names? Really? Was that necessary? Also, do children understand why people say “I could have stared at his picture all day.” I do not understand why so many children’s books about Lincoln include that tidbit. (Someone remind me to ask some kids about this the next time I’m in a room of 5-8 year olds.)

Last but not least, sigh. Mrs Harkness and the Panda. I had high hopes because I find Ruth Harkness to be fascinating. Unfortunately, all of the things I find interesting about her were missing from this book.

Ho hum.