Defenses
Written by Rebecca L. Grambo
Reviewed by Mitchell S. (age 8) & Matthew M. (age 8)
This book is about reptiles and animals that are in danger. How would you feel if you were one of them? Defenses is a very interesting nonfiction book about all the different ways animals protect themselves.
We learned that animals can protect themselves without hurting the predator. A predator is the one animal that kills and then eats the other animal. Some animals just trick or scare the predator away. Let us give you an example: fire-bellied toads protect themselves by flipping over on their back. Fire-bellied toads are toads that have green on the top and black dots on the top and bottom. Their bellies are mostly red.
The title helped us start to think and understand the book more. So did the photographs. The two pictures that tell the book began and ended are like a sandwich with a lot and lot of information in the middle (for the meat and all the other toppings.)
We saw the first picture and we knew that the closest paragraph was about the picture. There are different subtitles (a lot!) Each two pages have a different subtitle and the author organized the information and pictures in a way that makes sense. The subtitles tell how the animals defend themselves. Sometimes, in some animals, the book gives you two different pictures of one animal: a photo or a VERY good drawing. If we got stuck on one of the words, the two pictures helped and so did the sentences.
We stopped after one paragraph and then we thought. And then we read the next paragraph and sometimes we asked how the animals do that stuff. We actually closed our eyes sometimes and drew a picture in our mind.
Because we read a lot of books about animals in First Grade that helped us understand this book. It was the same meaning in different words about the same thing.
We like this book because it shows how some endangered animals protect themselves. Would you help our endangered friends from being extinct?