Dolphin Baby! (Junior Library Guild Selection (Candlewick Press)) [Hardcover]

Nicola Davies (Author), Brita Granström (Illustrator)

Book Description

Release date: April 10, 2012 | Age Range: 5 - 9 years | Series: Junior Library Guild Selection (Candlewick Press) | Lexile Measure: 860L (What's this?)

Swim with a baby dolphin as he learns to survive — and play — in an engaging story splashed with facts and buoyed by bright illustrations.

Pop! Tail first, head last, Dolphin is born into the blue. He’s brand new, but helped by his mother, he swims up, up, up to take his first breath. Readers are invited to join the baby calf as he follows his mom and discovers all there is to know about life under the sea, from catching his first fish to learning how to say his name with his very own whistle. Nicola Davies’s lyrical narrative and intriguing facts are accompanied by Brita Granström’s colorful illustrations, pulsing with the energy and movement of dolphins in their natural habitat.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Young children will love learning how little Dolphin suckles, whistles in baby talk, catches his first fish and rubs his tummy against Mom as sweetly animated paintings highlight each step.
—The New York Times

Zoologist Davies has long experience writing about nature for young readers. Here, she describes the first six months of a bottlenose calf’s life through the story of Dolphin and Mom... Granström’s acrylic paintings are beautiful. Spreading across two pages, they emphasize the blues of the dolphin’s environment... This introduction to dolphins is sure to win readers’ hearts.
—Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Nicola Davies is a zoologist and the author of many books for young readers, including Surprising Sharks, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor winner, illustrated by James Croft; Big Blue Whale, illustrated by Nick Maland; and Extreme Animals: The Toughest Creatures on Earth, illustrated by Neal Layton. "I adore dolphins," she says. "Just looking at them makes me happy. I've spent many days watching them — often when I should have been doing something else!" Nicola Davies lives in Wales.

Brita Granström has illustrated many children’s books, including Eyes, Nose, Fingers, and Toes: A First Book All About You and Does a Cow Say Boo?, both written by Judy Hindley. "I hadn’t seen a wild dolphin until I started Dolphin Baby!" she says. "Then, as if by magic, a pod of fifteen dolphins and their babies arrived near my home, so close to shore that I could draw them from my studio window. I immediately fell in love." Brita Granström lives in England.

Product Details

• Age Range: 5 - 9 years
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Candlewick; First American Edition edition (April 10, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0763655481
• ISBN-13: 978-0763655488
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 0.4 x 11 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #643,947 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant December 8, 2012

By Debnance at Readerbuzz

Format:Hardcover

I'm a school librarian but I really didn't know much about Nicola Davies until the literacy coordinator at my school started raving about what a great writer she is. With all that, I still never took the time to read one of her books until Dolphin Baby appeared at my door as one of the Cybils nominees.

Wow. What a great story. How did the author do it? Page one and suddenly I was a baby dolphin, swimming along with my mother.

Davies tells the story just right, mixing cool facts ("Every dolphin has one whistle that's its own....") as sidebars to the story of the day-by-day life of a little dolphin. The dolphin is enough like the child reader that he can identify with the dolphin and yet different enough to intrigue him with his other-ness.

I love the voice of Davies in this book, a voice that sounds like she is right here with the child as he reads along, sharing info that will help the child read through all the hard parts.

Brilliant.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Not approprate for my six year old. December 21, 2012

By Shelley Dawson Hendershot

Format:Hardcover

My daughter loves dolphins. Loves loves loves them. So Grandma sent her this book for the holidays. It starts with the baby dolphin being born, that makes sense. The illustration of birth is too graphic for me to show my child at this age. I do not want to have to explain the *how* of "How do babies come out?" I am putting the book into the basement and I will give it too her when I am ready to tell here where babies come out of bodies.