Marsupials

Author: Nic Bishop
Publication Date: 2009
Type of Book: Informational Picture Book

This informational book educates readers about the different marsupials that live in Australia. Readers will learn about bettongs, bailies, potoroos, pademelons, kangaroos, koalas and others. The book is set up with a picture on one side and text on the other. There are usually four pages per marsupial.

I learned so much about marsupials from reading this book. Many of the words were new to me so I wasn't sure on their pronunciation. I loved how this story incorporated images captured by the author who is also a photographer. It was interesting how a sentence on each page was highlighted in an another color and was written in larger bold font. I think that the author chose what he thought was the most important piece of information from each page to highlight. This could be helpful if readers don't have time to read the whole story, but just want some quick information. I also found it interesting how the author included his story about his time spent in Australia learning about the marsupials.

I would recommend this book to older elementary school students. The book contains a lot of information and is longer than most picture books, so students have to have the stamina to read it. The words are also very challenging because they're scientific names. Students could make a list of words that they don't know while reading and look them up later if their definition isn't in the book already. Even though this is a challenging read it is full of great information for students.


Image References:
http://www.amazon.com/Nic-Bishop-Marsupials/dp/043987758X