Customer Reviews

Big Blue Whale

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm a whale researcher who has spent much of the last 12 years studying blue whales in the North Pacific. I'm also a mom who loves children's literature. Rarely do I see a book that is so accurate factually while it is captivating and magical! The illustrations are beautiful. I highly recommend it to anyone who has children who are facinated by whales.

A wonderfully succinct overview of the blue whale and it's habits.

The clear, sweet prose makes delivery of the content easy, and the very fine, soft illustrations demand repeated veiwing. My Preschool and Kindergarten ESL students found it highly engaging.

If there's a better science and read-aloud book around I'd really like to know about it. TEN stars.

Follow this book up with the superb "Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is?" by Robert E. Wells. Wells' book uses the whales' size as a starting point for exploring the size of the universe and other very big things (the second step involves putting a hundred blue whales in a really big jar). Read my review of Wells' book if you like.

This book is a delight to read out loud to children, the illutrations are excellent and the information that is given is also educational. I would reccomend this book for lower primary use, it could even be used for middle primary use to start of a unit of work on Whales. It is also excellent for just reading to your children at home, or as independant reading material.

We did not purchase this from Amazon, we borrowed it from the library.

Delightful and detailed large crosshatching colored pen and ink illustrations. It is of note that this is not a storybook - but informational in nature. There are actually two sets of complementary facts being provided simultaneously. While this is an interesting feature throughout the book, there were a few times when it actually disrupted the flow of thought. Facts about blue whales are presented in specific measurements (feet, tons, counts, etc.) as well as relative terms (larger than an elephant, eyes the size of the end of a pencil) and with detailed graphics. We learned interesting facts about migration, birth, nutrition, and communication.

The text was quite extensive and was enjoyed more by our 6-year-old than our 4-year-old. However, the pictures were enough to keep the younger's attention throughout.

Although it falls in the "picture book" catagory, the art work is suitable for an older child and it offers so much interesting information about blue whales it is perfect for a student in 4th or 5th grade. My pre-teen granddaughter loved the book.

My son chose blue whales for a school report, and this book was his best source. Excellent illustrations and a large book format capture a child's attention. This is a very READABLE science book, and it's so interesting that they may read it more than once.

Plenty of details throughout the book, and an excellent description of how blue whales feed with their baleen. This book also has the best explanation of blue whale migration patterns out of all the whale books we used.

This is a great book. It has wonderful pictures and is simple and well done. I think this is a worth while addition to one's libary.