Product Description

A great resource for teachers!

Read and Wonder books tell stories, take children on adventures,
and reveal how big and WONDER-full the natural world really is.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #118017 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-01
• Released on: 2001-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 32 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780763610807
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 3. Small human figures make occasional comic appearances in the pictures, but this handsome slim volume is an informative introduction to the life of "the biggest creature that has ever lived on Earth." In an effective opening double-page scene, a young man and woman reach up toward an elephant and a giraffe, all of them standing next to the tail end of the whale, demonstrating its enormous size. Davies offers simple, lively descriptions of the blue whale's body, eating habits, child care, migration, and means of communication. "Yet, the blue whale may not be as lonely as it seems. Because sometimes it makes a hum?a hum so loud and so low that it can travel for thousands of miles through the seas to reach other blue whales." Maland's cross-hatched pen-and-ink drawings, washed in soft tones of blue, gray, aqua, and orange, sometimes appear as smaller, blocked scenes, but more often they fill the double-page spreads with bits of caption gracefully curving around related picture elements. A simple index appears at the front of the book, doubling as a table of contents. Some libraries may assign this to the picture-book shelves, where it will be read as a true-life story, but it will serve equally well as nonfiction. It's a pleasing choice for reading aloud or for classroom use.?Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Conversational text and soft, crosshatched pen-and-ink illustrations ebb and flow in a fluid look at the largest mammal ever to inhabit the earth. Invoking the senses, Davies describes the blue whale's physical attributes in irresistible, crystalline terms. Its skin is ``springy and smooth like a hard-boiled egg, and it's as slippery as wet soap.'' The enormity of the blue whale comes into focus in the illustrations that place it next to a giraffe and an elephant, bringing it into the everyday realm of children. The scale of this leviathan becomes even clearer when Davies notes that its eyes are the size of teacups and its ears are no larger than the end of a pencil. She covers its yearly migration, and its diet of 30 million tiny krill in just a day. Undulating bold text provides auxiliary facts that complement the main story. Effective use of shrinking and expanding typeface and the inclusion of two human observers accentuate the proportional vastness of both the creature and its ocean. This unassuming book is teeming with new discoveries upon each rereading. (index) (Picture book/nonfiction. 4-9) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
How big is the blue whale? Elementary-level kids receive a coverage which invites size comparisons and which creates an interactive atmosphere whereby kids imagine they are touching and seeing the whale itself. Color photos may have made more of an impact than Nick Maland's gentle illustrations - but the latter succeeds in putting the whale's size into comparable perspective. -- Midwest Book Review

Customer Reviews

ONE OF THE BEST WHALE BOOKS AVAILABLE!
I'm a whale researcher who has spent much of the last 12 years studying blue whales in the North Pacific. I'm also a mom who loves children's literature. Rarely do I see a book that is so accurate factually while it is captivating and magical! The illustrations are beautiful. I highly recommend it to anyone who has children who are facinated by whales.

Perfect science and read-aloud book.
A wonderfully succinct overview of the blue whale and it's habits.

The clear, sweet prose makes delivery of the content easy, and the very fine, soft illustrations demand repeated veiwing. My Preschool and Kindergarten ESL students found it highly engaging.

If there's a better science and read-aloud book around I'd really like to know about it. TEN stars.

Follow this book up with the superb "Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is?" by Robert E. Wells. Wells' book uses the whales' size as a starting point for exploring the size of the universe and other very big things (the second step involves putting a hundred blue whales in a really big jar). Read my review of Wells' book if you like.

Big Blue Whale
This book is a delight to read out loud to children, the illutrations are excellent and the information that is given is also educational. I would reccomend this book for lower primary use, it could even be used for middle primary use to start of a unit of work on Whales. It is also excellent for just reading to your children at home, or as independant reading material.