They Just Know: Animal Instincts (Arbordale Collection)

How do some young animals know what to do and how to do it? Does someone teach a caterpillar what to eat? Who gives a baby shark swimming lessons? Sometimes young animals learn things from their parents, but other times… they just know! Explore animal instincts through engaging text and fanciful illustrations. This nonfiction picture book with a cuddle factor includes a 4-page For Creative Minds section in the back of the book and a 35-page cross-curricular Teaching Activity Guide online. They Just Know is vetted by experts and designed to encourage parental engagement. Its extensive back matter helps teachers with time-saving lesson ideas, provides extensions for science, math, and social studies units, and uses inquiry-based learning to help build critical thinking skills in young readers. The Spanish translation supports ELL and dual-language programs.

Robin Yardi lives in Santa Barbara, California with a sulcata Tortoise, eight chickens, and innumerable koi fish (they won't sit still while she counts them). She spends time in the garden with one lovely husband and two muddy kids who almost never sit still. Coyotes cruise by, stealing chickens, hawks dip in the sky, looking for lizards, the deer nibble from fruit trees, and every year new quail chicks are born. There are monarchs on milkweed, squirrels in the oak trees, waxwings in toyon, moles under the lawn, juncos on the ground, and beauty all around! Robin watches it all with great wonder, a stack of field guides and picture books nearby. She's a credentialed California elementary teacher and her students always sit still when she reads them just the right book!

Laurie Allen Klein has been a freelance artist for nearly 25 years. Over the last several years, she has worked as the on staff artist for a marine park, where she does everything from painting life size sea animal murals to illustrating children's activity books. In addition to The Ghost of Donley Farm, Laurie has illustrated Fur and Feathers, Where Should Turtle Be?, Little Skink's Tail, Solar System Forecast, Meet the Planets, If a Dolphin Were a Fish and Balloon Trees for Arbordale. She was the winner of the Outstanding Pennsylvania Author/Illustrator Award from the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association in 2008 and is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Laurie lives in Florida