A WALK THROUGH THE RAINFOREST — Review

Thought for the Day:

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.”
~ Tom Stoppard ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

We all want our characters to be memorable. Lisa Hall-Wilson has written a fun and useful post HERE on Writers in the Storm called 4 Tips for Memorable Characters from Jack Sparrow.

Learning to write a good logline is an important part of marketing your work. HERE on Story Empire Blog, Staci Troilo has a really good article with great examples on how to write a logline.

Secondary characters are so important to make a story complete. C. S. Lakin on Live Write Thrive has an excellent article HERE on The Important Role Secondary Characters Play.

Today is the last regular season game, and our outstanding, award-winning shortstop, Brandon Crawford, is playing his last game in a Giants uniform. He has long been my favorite player, so this is a hard game for me to watch. His four daughters threw out “first pitches” to their dad. It was awfully sweet. He is terribly well respected. Even the dastardly Dodgers stood and applauded when he first came out. The playoffs start this week, and I will be watching as much as I can. Since I grew up in Minnesota, I will cheer for the Twins in the American League, and I’m cheering for the Phillies in the National League, but, honestly, anybody but the Dodgers will work just fine. I’m just hoping we have a lot of exciting games.

There are so many great picture books being written for middle-graders, and I don’t feature them often enough. I actually have two manuscripts for MG picture books that I am just starting to submit, so I have this category of books on my mind. The one I am featuring today, A WALK THROUGH THE RAINFOREST by Martin Jenkins and illustrated by Vicky White, is a real beauty and carries important messages about the importance of saving the rainforests. Here is the review I wrote for the Seattle Book Review.

If one could visit a rainforest, what would one find? One would find more varieties of both animals and plants than in any other place on Earth: “seven kinds of wild cats, six kinds of pheasants, twelve kinds of pigeons, at least fourteen kinds of squirrels, sixty-six kinds of frogs (more or less),” etc.

Each spread has an illustration by Vicky White that can easily be mistaken for a photograph (most in black and white but some with color) covering a full page or a page and a half with text explaining what is shown. Occasionally, there are illustrations filling the entire spread. The text is friendly and conversational, but the research and expertise of author Martin Jenkins shine through.

Young readers will be fascinated by all the interesting information presented here about all the different animals and plants found in these amazing places. Great back-matter addresses the problems facing rainforests today, from clear-cutting to making room for grazing and farming. There are also four pages of color drawings of birds, insects, mammals, frogs, and reptiles native to rainforests.

This is a book that should be in every elementary classroom and library.

Please don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.