National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Animals Hardcover – Picture Book, October 12, 2010

My kid is 3 and that’s the perfect age to start learning more about the world. And as a literacy teacher, to me nothing beats National Geographic for non-fiction. So I’ve started collecting this series in hardback (beautiful) for bedtime and anytime reading with my kid.The author of this series knows how to write for kids! The layouts are engaging, tons of captions- which are great for reading to excited kids who can’t quite understand the full paragraphs yet. The photographs are fantastic, highly detailed and interesting and the book length is substantial with a wonderful variety of animals explored. You can select a few animals for a bedtime read and there is so much to see that you learn something new each time. To me it’s more fun than fiction because you can skip around and read whatever your kid is interested in, while having great conversations about animals and environments, and how people do things in comparison with animals…on and on. It is not a passive experience for kids, they are very reactive to the content and will ask you questions. Sometimes we cue up a YouTube video (also National Geographic) if an animal really inspires us. The color changing of an octopus on video blew my kid’s mind. So, this book really helps you take time to teach your kids about the world. It would make a fantastic gift to any parent with young kids. They will want the whole series next!We took special interest in the map in the reference section, which is such a great knowledge base to start building with something as relatable as animals. My kid even wanted me to read him the table of contents, so all of those non-fiction features are laid out beautifully for kids.I expect these books (the series) to grow with us. They are written at maybe a late second grade level, early third. The language is simple, direct, and addresses the reader like a teacher of K-5. The tidbit facts are fun and mind-expanding for kids, not dry facts like books written years ago.The material and images are fascinating for even older kids (and adults reading them aloud!) So I’d say 3-10 year olds can enjoy these for many many re-readings. They’re a kid-library staple. So far we have the ocean animals book, transportation book, solar system book, bird book (lovely for kids watching birds out the windows) and this one. I hope they write a body book. For that I bought a DK book but it’s a higher reading level and we could use something younger right now but with real photographs. The solar system one is incredible. The images we have now are so clear, and understanding the concept of space is such a special thing to teach your kids yourself! I highly recommend the whole series!Let me know if this was helpful! :)

This is a fabulous book for young kids! The pages have many stunning and large photos of a good variety of animals. The book is broken up into sections like Desert, Forest, Ocean, etc. What is nice about these sections is that they don't all stick with the "typical" animals commonly classified with each time of habitat. An example is tigers being in the forest section. This shows children that there are other types of forests as opposed to just the American and Canadian types they may be familiar with.Each animal has a section about 2-4 pages long. These pages have very short and simple facts, and big, colorful images. It's short and sweet, but still captivating. There are also plenty of images of cute baby animals, which are always fun to look at!Another great thing about this book is that it actually has a Parent Tips section with small activities to do with kids based on the animals in the book, and each one works with a different skill. They're all very simple to do, and some are more fun than educational, but fun and education should go hand in hand with kids to keep them interested. There is also a map with names of the animals labelled in each country.Overall, this is an excellent beginner's book. It's not super detailed, but there are enough facts in there for a young child to retain, and with over 100 pages, that's a relief for parents who end up reading the whole thing to their kids in one sitting like I just did.

I bought this as a birthday gift for my 4 year old daughter because she loves animals and she has been asking to read it every day. The book has hardback binding and is much larger than what I expected, which was a plus. It has 128 pages of beautifully colored animal photographs, many photographs of each type of animal per page. The pages themselves are thick and have tons of colors/designs surrounding the actual photographs. The writing per page is large print and contains lots of interesting facts about the animals, including lots of things even I didn't know. My daughter can't read yet, but this book would be good for a second or third grader to read independently.For each animal, it lists the kind of animal (mammal, amphibian, etc.), what continent it lives on, the size of the animal, what the animal eats, what sounds they make, and how many babies the animal has at a time. Most animals have 3-4 pages dedicated to information about them. I've been teaching my daughter about animal habitats (grassland, ocean, tundra, etc.) and I was thrilled that this book is actually divided into habitats and the animals that live in them. Some of the animals featured are cheetah, giraffe, sea otter, sea turtle, meerkat, camel, red eyed tree frog, black handed spider monkey, raccoon, tiger, beaver, harp seal, snowy owl, penguins, and octopus. I like that it included a variety of familiar animals we've seen at the zoo with some lesser known animals like the desert jerboa and blue striped grunt.As a former teacher, this book would be a great way to introduce students to the features of a nonfiction encyclopedia such as a table of contents, title page, captions, index, and glossary, all of which are featured in this book. Another feature I liked was the two pages of parent tips that give you ideas for enrichment activities to do with your child, such as measuring their height, blowing underwater bubbles, creating a diorama, clue games, and rhyming words. The book also has a world map that shows the continents and lists the animals in the book next to the continent they live on. There are so many educational aspects to this book and I can't believe it was only $9! It's such a high quality book and definitely one that we read a lot.

Perfect book for kids to learn about many different animals! such a great book

This book is amazing! I am so pleased with it. I got it for my adult special son. He loves animal books. This one is so well done! Beautiful photos and simple information. Perfect! I want to order more of her books.