Saturday, July 7, 2012

Book Review: Animals and Their Families by Barbara Nascimbeni


Written & Illustrated By: Barbara Nascimbeni
Published by: Owlkids
Released on: April 2012
Ages: 2-5
Source: book from author to review
5 stars: A Fabulous Book for Toddlers
Purchase from: Owlkids | Amazon

Featuring playful illustrations and small vignettes of text, Animals and Their Families crosses continents and habitats to introduce children to nearly three dozen land-, sea-, and tree-dwelling animals including gazelles, penguins, owls, and more. Each spread is rich with information and will help a child explore the animal kingdom in many simple and accessible ways. A new creature is introduced in silhouette, while the facing page shows that same creature in its natural habitat, playing with, caring for, or teaching its young. All members of the animal family — male and female, adult and baby — are illustrated in warm colors and identified by the proper term. Small bits of text share the sound each animals makes, where it lives, and what it eats with young readers. -quoted from Owlkids

There's something about an animal book that my young children have always loved. Though my son has out grown the young children's picture book stage, my daughter is still very much into the picture book stage (at least for a little bit longer). She's at the stage were she wants to know about everything. How things work, where things come from, what things do, and how. Being that she's an animal lover, she absolutely loves looking through this book and having me read it to her. Barbara's book provides a few of the answers that my daughter was looking for.

Animals and Their Families is a great source of information for toddlers who want to learn more about animals. It's simple wording, and illustration introduce children to a variety of different animals in their environments, and in a way that young kids will be able to comprehend. On each set of pages they will find a black and white image of an animal, followed up with a full color picture of that animal found with it's "family" in it's environment. For example, the wolf is pictured in black and white and underneath it's picture is the word wolf. The following page has the wolf in a grow of trees with it's family. Below is the sound it makes, where it's home is found and what it eats.

With it's cute illustrations and simplistic introduction to the animal world, make this a most have book for young kids. Here's an example of just one of the cute illustrations found within this book:


Being a hard cover book and printed on sturdier paper makes this a book those 2 and old could easily look through. From wolves, to penguins, snails to frogs, monkeys, elephants, cows, owls and more, kids will enjoy it's mix of animals that range from house hold pets, animals found in the forest, the ocean, jungle, and even on the farm. This is a book I'd recommend picking up.
I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. ~ Anna Quindlen

Good children's literature appeals not only to
the child in the adult, but to the adult in the child.
~ Anonymous ~