The River

Picture Book
Title: The River
Author: Gallimard Jeunesse and Laura Bour
Illustrator: Laura Bour
Age Level: 3+
Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary
This book is about plant and animal life near the river.  It describes many different animals and insects that you can find near or in a river and it tells the lifecycles of some bugs and amphibians that you may find.

Opinion
This was also a book that I liked to read while growing up.  I loved learning about different plants and animals and this was always a fun book that I liked to read.  The representational art really makes you feel like you are down by the river experiencing all of the great wildlife that it holds.  Throughout this book there are also many transparent sheets that are painted with pictures that cover up something on the next page.  This is a great added affect to the book that makes reading it more exciting in my opinion because you can see how one page works with the next page.  The illustrations are also very detailed and done in vibrant colors which make the wildlife in and around the river stand out dramatically.

This book has so much rich information about plants, animals, and insects that it would definitly be used in my classroom as a future teacher.  I would use this book when we are talking about either different ecosystems or different landscapes or if we are learning about birds, amphibians, or insects.  This book would be a fun attention getter and opener activity to get students excited to learn about this type of science.  I would gather the children on the rug and read the book, followed by a discussion of what things were familiar to them or what they have seen before.  It also might be fun to bring the children to a river by the school and see how many things from the book we are able to find and then we can use that knowledge to state information we know about them.

http://www.paperbackswap.com/River-First-Discovery-Books/book/0590471287/