I Didn't Know: Some Snakes

Provides a fact-filled introduction for young readers about snakes, their anatomy, behavior, and more, in a guide that also features puzzles, projects, and quizzes to reinforce scientific concepts.

Grade 2-4?A poison-spitting cobra and an astronaut floating through the black void of space leap off the covers of these books to draw in young readers. Each double-page spread of text is surrounded by a colorful border and a set of facts. Differing typefaces with the phrase "I didn't know that," printed in a wavy line, give visual punch to the pages of these informative titles that use a number of techniques to attract readers: true-and-false questions, search-and-find boxes, and insets. Even with all these techniques in play, the pages do not appear cluttered. Each book includes a project or activity?making a yogurt-container snake and an oxygen experiment, respectively. Much of the text in both offerings is printed white on black or black on color, giving it a bold look. Snakes includes basic facts about life span, food, reproduction, and the largest and smallest of species, while Moon includes information on space exploration, rocket stages, and life in space. Fun and facts in a colorful format that's sure to attract browsers.?Kathryn Kosiorek, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Brooklyn, OH
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The dramatic full-color cover illustration of a spitting cobra and hissing rattlesnake will attract browsers to this title, but the information they encounter within may make them feel hoodwinked. Every spread starts with a statement that is partially answered in the text, e.g., ``I didn't know that snakes lay eggs,'' or have fangs, or can fly. The construction of the statements often results in imprecisions that Llewellyn (My First Book of Time, 1992, etc.) attempts to clean up in subsequent sentences--``although most snakes lay eggs, some, such as vipers, are born live.'' What most readers will remember, however, are the opening statements, and not the elaborations, e.g., that some snakes fly and not that there is a particular snake that glides. The layout is dramatic, often with white text on black backgrounds, but cluttered: full-color close-ups of snake parts, a border of cartoon animals, boxes of things to do, puzzles, and true or false questions. (glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 7-10) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.