Dragon In The Sky (Junior Library Guild) Pringle, Laurence; Pringle/marstall and Marstall, Bob

Gr 2-5-Like An Extraordinary Life: The Story of a Monarch Butterfly (Orchard, 1997), this book is carefully researched and extraordinarily detailed in text and art. Readers follow one particular green darner, Anax, from his birth in a swamp in New York to mating and death in a Florida pond. Specific incidents in his life are augmented with more general information about dragonflies and damselflies. Sidebars give facts about other creatures that share his habitats. Information on raising dragonfly nymphs for study is appended, and several Web sites are suggested. In Marstall's watercolor-and-oil paintings, soft greens and browns predominate. This is an exemplary nature-study book-accurate, explicit, and satisfyingly complete.

Ellen Heath, Orchard School, Ridgewood, NJ

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 3-5. Similar in concept to Pringle's An Extraordinary Life: The Story of a Monarch Butterfly (2000), this handsome, large-format book, illustrated by Bob Marstall, introduces dragonflies through the story of a single green darner, Anax. It begins with two dragonflies mating in a swamp in western New York State. One of the eggs hatches, and Anax goes through the protonymph and nymph stages. He grows and molts several times before emerging as an adult and living in the air rather than the water. When autumn comes, Anax begins his migration to a pond in Florida. There he mates and begins the cycle once more. The book offers plenty of detail about Anax's body structures, metamorphoses, habits, and environment. Though many children researching an animal prefer "just the facts" rather than reading about a single example of the species, there's a great deal about dragonflies to be learned from this well-written account. Marstall's paintings include beautiful landscapes as well as many clear, enlarged views of Anax and the creatures around him. Backmatter includes advice on caring for dragonfly nymphs, a bibliography of books and articles, and a list of dragonfly Web sites. Carolyn Phelan
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