On One Flower: Butterflies, Ticks and a Few More Icks

by Anthony D. Fredericks, Jennifer DiRubbio (Illustrator)

Overview

Vibrant illustrations and rhyming text offer readers an experience exploring on a flower to learn of the ecosystem there. Children will gain an appreciation for the world on one flower and for the whole world around us!

This book takes place on one flower, a goldenrod. Soiders…A butterfly sipping nectar ... A ladybug snacking on aphids... oh ladybug, look out for the ambushbug! Dr. Fredericks focuses on the whole plant-and-animal "community" inhabiting a single flower. Two pages of "Field Notes" and "fun facts" at the back of the book offer intriguing information on these creatures.

A perfect book for:

• parents and teachers needing homeschool materials for kindergarten (or any grade!)
• anyone looking for picture books on insects or singalong books for kids!
• anyone looking for children's books to help instill an appreciation of our planet!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781584692355
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	09/01/2006
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	23 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 10 Years

About the Author

Anthony D. Fredericks is a veteran nature explorer. He grew up on the beaches of southern California and during summers camped (and swatted mosquitoes) in the Sierra Nevada mountains of eastern California. Later he attended high school and college in Arizona where he often spent his free time trekking through the Sonoran desert. Now Tony explores the hillside in south-central Pennsylvania where he and his wife reside and frequently hikes the mountains of western Colorado where his granddaughter lives. A former classroom teacher and reading specialist, he is Professor of Education at York College. As the author of more than 30 children's books (some about "buggy" things) he is a frequent visitor to schools around the country, where he shares the wonders of nature with a new generation of naturalists.

Jennifer DiRubbio is both a passionate artist and an avid environmentalist. She has been active as an artist for several organizations that promote nature and a healthy planet. Jennifer graduated with a BFA from Pratt Institute in 1992. She keeps her home and studio in Merrick, New York, as "green" and environmentally sound as possible, where her husband and two young children also work and play.

What People are Saying About This

Gary Dunn

"...a perfect blend of scientific information and rhyming text - bug science that’s fun to read!"
—Director of Education, Young Entomologists’ Society, Minibeast Zooseum and Education Center - February 2006

Editorial Reviews

PreS-Gr 3-A rhyming text, most of which is a cumulative poem, tells how two boys wander into a field and discover a thriving ecosystem on a single goldenrod flower. Couplets set on the backgrounds of vivid picture spreads identify each of the seven invertebrates that the children observe (a mix of insects and arachnids) and briefly describe one or two of their special physical and/or behavioral characteristics. An appendix offers some additional facts about the goldenrod and the featured invertebrates. Contact information for several conservation organizations is included. The realistic, full-color art is the book's best feature. The blue-eyed protagonists are attractive, the renderings of the small animals are close up and clear, and DiRubbio's use of a constantly changing perspective is refreshing. As for the poetry, while the lines may rhyme, they often make little sense. For instance, the couplet describing a tick reads, "An eight-legged tick with a sensitive feel,/Waits on the stalk for a blood-sucking meal." What's a "sensitive feel?" And is it the meal that sucks blood, or the tick? Some word combinations are just awkward, such as the reference to invertebrates as "bug-buggy critters," or a stinkbug as a "smell-smelly critter." Readers attracted to the art are likely to be disappointed by the poetry.-Karey Wehner, formerly at San Francisco Public Library Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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