Laurie AngusCritiques

Short text with a guessing element make this animal adaption story accessible for young readers.

My storytime kiddos were at the edge of their seats for this one. Amazing.

PADDLE PERCH CLIMB: BIRD FEET ARE NEAT by Laurie Ellen Angus is an engaging informational book examining birds and their feet.

Angus uses attractive collage illustrations and simple text to explore seven birds with different foot characteristics such as strong feet for running and flexible toes for picking. The book concludes with an overview of key science facts about each bird along with other useful information for both students and teachers.

Librarians will find this informational book to be useful in the life science curriculum. Feature it in a display with other books exploring the physical features of animals such as those by Steve Jenkins.

Published on March 1, 2018 by Dawn Publications. ARC courtesy of the publisher.½

I love octopuses and I was interested to look at this, but didn't want to purchase it as Dawn titles can be more heavily geared towards school use than what I need for the public library.

This is definitely a winner in the octopus book department though! Simple text, which heavily uses active language "Whoosh! Octopus releases her secret weapon - a cloud of dark ink. She scoots away, still hungry." is paired with chunks of smaller text that offer more information. Colorful collage illustrations are a bit too reminiscient of Steve Jenkins for my taste, but are perfectly serviceable for the text.

Like all Dawn titles, this has copious back matter, basically offering lesson plans for teachers or parents, activities, further information, and more.

Verdict: If you're looking for more octopus books for young cephalopod fans, planning an octopus-themed storytime, collecting resources for teachers, or setting up science projects, this is a great supplementary title to add to your collection.

ISBN: 9781584695776; Published 2016 by Dawn Publications; Borrowed from another library in my consortium

GREAT information/web links at end of book ... only fictional as a story

This book is an informational text about Octopuses. The book follows a octopuses as she searches for food. She is almost eaten by larger fish a couple of times, but always manages to escape. The book's illustrations are some beautiful and paint a wonderful picture of what lies beneath the ocean: I like how the author added informational text to the story to explain certain things about the octopus. During the reading of the book, I would stop on each page that had these extra informational text boxes to discuss with the kids. This might be a great book to read during an ocean lesson. Or this could be a book that is suggested to students to use if they were researching octopuses for a project.

OCTOPUS ESCAPES AGAIN! by Laurie Ellen Angus is an informational adventure following an octopus seeking dinner.

This fascinating story features an octopus on a quest for food. Along the way, readers learn about the habitat and behaviors of this amazing sea creature including how it uses clouds of ink, jet propulsion, and camouflage as defense. Woven into the narrative are interesting facts about the octopus. The book concludes with additional information and learning activities.

The author/illustrator’s use of large, easy-to-read text along with colorful, collage techniques will be appealing for many young readers.

Librarians will find this nonfiction narrative to be popular with students and teachers seeking high-quality information along with an engaging story. With both alliteration and repetition, the author’s lyrical approach makes this a good read-aloud choice.

Published by Dawn Publications on September 1, 2016. ARC courtesy of the publisher.