Nonfiction Monday: Fall's Here series

The Fall's Here series, part of Cloverleaf books, published by Millbrook Press, a division of Lerner Publishing Group, consists of the following six books, all of which I recommend.

Animals in Fall: Preparing for Winter (ISBN: 978-0-7613-8506-6)
Fall Apples: Crisp and Juicy (ISBN: 978-0-7613-8507-3)
Fall Harvests: Bringing in Food (ISBN: 978-0-7613-8508-0)
Fall Leaves: Colorful and Crunchy (ISBN: 978-0-7613-8505-9)
Fall Pumpkins: Orange and Plump (ISBN: 978-0-7613-8509-7)
Fall Weather: Cooler Temperatures (ISBN: 978-0761385103)written by Martha E. H. Rustad, illustrated by Amanda Enright
Millbrook Press, 2012
Grades K-2
Reviewed from personal copies.

Each of these books covers a specific part of the fall season.  Animals is Fall discusses what animals do to prepare for winter including migration, hibernation, and camouflage.  Fall Apples covers the growth and development of apples from the planting of the seed to the harvesting of the crop.  It also mentions some of the different ways that apples are used (pies, cider, etc.).  Fall Harvests presents information about growing and harvesting various kinds of plants such as pumpkins, pecans, corn, and potatoes.  The author covers photosynthesis and harvest festivals as well.  Fall Leaves follows the changes that leaves undergo starting with budding in the spring and changing colors and falling in the fall.  Fall Pumpkins teaches the reader how pumpkins are grown including planting, weeding, and harvesting.  Fall Weather demonstrates the changes that occur in the weather during the fall season and how such changes are measured.

There are a number of things that make this series very good for both educational purposes and pleasure reading.  First, the design is attractive and easy to follow.  The organization works especially well for a teacher who wishes to cover certain aspects of fall in an orderly manner.  I also appreciated the use of a table of contents, glossary, index, and additional resources.  Each book also contains an activity that goes along with the information covered in each book. The second thing I like is the friendly and appealing illustrations.  The illustrations are very child friendly. I also enjoyed the text which is simple enough for younger readers, but also includes side notes for readers who want more information.  The text is written as a narrative which makes for a good read a loud.  I highly recommend this series for all those that want to learn more about fall.  I liked the fact that I learned some things from these books that I did not know previously.  For example, I did not realize that when apple seeds are planted the apples they produce are not the same variety of apple as the seed that was planted. Lots of interesting things to learn in these books.

I did use one of these books with some classes of kindergartners.  I found that the students wanted to stop and share everything they knew about the topic as well as stories about any topic.  Nonfiction seems to trigger this response in children of all ages.

For other great children's nonfiction recommendations, head on over to Books Together for today's Nonfiction Monday.

Read to Me Picture Book Challenge
Watering Level: 12 of 36 Completed

Comments

  1. Heidi, I am definitely going to recommend these to our school librarian. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

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