Patricia CorriganCritiques

599.75

in depth discussion of the different aspects of manatees: where they live, what they eat, how they survive.
1 book

This book is about a young girl who learns about manatees after telling her brother she wants to be a mermaid. The story shares her journey to Florida where she encounters manatees for the first time. In addition to being a story it also shares many facts about manatees including where and how they live.

This book provided the reader with many facts about manatees and how they live in the wild. I liked that it was not just straight up facts but also had a story line to go along with it. I think the author did a good job of engaging the reader. This book could simply be told as a story or used for research purposes. I liked that there was a good mixture of both photographs and illustrations. The illustrations were also relevant and went along with the story in an effective manner.

This book is broken into sections of cougars,leopards, lions, and tigers. All of these animals are considered big cats. Each section gives characteristics of what parts of the workld these animals are usually found. They give differnt nicknames for these animals as well. Each animal also has a fun fact about it at the ned of each section.

I enjoyed this book because the pictures were great. Pictures, in my opinion, make children want ot read books such as these more often. This book also had a lot of interesting facts and informative facts to help the children learn more about varieties of animals.

In the classroom, I would have a unit on animals. I would also have fun drawing activities in which the children would draw their favorite animal and then describe which group of animals it falls under.

The St. Louis Zoo was a major part of my growing-up years. I have memories, home movies, pictures by the score. I have always felt extremely lucky to have access to such a world-class zoo that was FREE. I remember the animal shows from the 60s & 70s and Phil the Gorilla. My kids grew up with the zoo, maybe without the animal shows, but with Phil (now stuffed), Big Cat Country, and the Jungle of the Apes. I now take my grandson and we wander through The River's Edge and see Raja, the first elephant born at the zoo, and Maia, the elephant born just days before my granddaughter. I read and enjoyed Patricia Corrigan's columns in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch years ago. So my expectations of this book were very high.
I was so disappointed.
Yes, there are some interesting stories about the founding of the zoo and the background of some of the animals. But the writing style is flat, the subject jumps around between paragraphs, the pictures don't always match the text, and (the very worst part for me), a page will all of a sudden say "Continued on page 65" and a different chapter will start on the next page. I loved the stories, I loved the pictures, but I hated the writing. So sad.