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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enter tail pun here, October 8, 2007
The skink does not often get its due. Here you have an animal that can remove its own tail and grow it back again, yet how much cred does it get in the children's book world? Hardly any. You're far more likely to find picture books about newts and salamanders than your average everyday skink. I wouldn't call myself a Skink Advocate, but the minute I saw the title and cover of Janet Halfmann's newest book I felt inclined to see and learn more. I see very few books from small presses like Sylvan Dell, and fewer still that tickle my fancy. "Little Skink's Tail" is one of the few, and it's a lovely little delight of a book. Little Skink was having a perfectly nice day right up until the moment a hungry crow decided to make a quick snack of her. Snapping off her own bright blue tail (as skinks tend to do in these situations) she escapes beneath a log as the crow dives for the still wiggling ex-extremity. The next day Little Skink feels a bit bereft without her tail. Looking at some of the other animals in the forest, she contemplates the advantages of growing one tail over another. Bunnies have nice tails but they're awful puffy. Squirrels would be fun, but there's a bushiness there to be reckoned with. Systematically Little Skink rules out the advantages of having the tails of deer, skunks, porcupines, owls, and turtles, each time imagining the tails on her own body. A couple days later, though, the perfect tail grows back. One of the bright bottle blue persuasion. Factual back matter round out the book by teaching kids about animal tracks, navigation, and the evolutionary advantages of one tail over another. The book could have gone wrong a variety of different ways. If Halfmann had made it too cute and filled it with adorable talking woodland creatures, for example. Or she could have made the skink actually grow these tails rather than just imagine what they'd look like. Yet Halfmann is pretty adept at keeping strictly to the factual elements of her story. If the book is cute, that's only because it never trips into preciousness. The narrative is straightforward as well. Personally, I might have suggested turning the various tails Little Skink tries out into bright blue versions, but I can see why the decision was made to keep them their original colors. A child reading this book might have a hard time connecting a bright blue deer tail to its subtler, browner equivalent, after all. Laurie Allen Klein's endearing skink is probably the real reason I wanted to get my hands on the book, though. A clever idea will get you only so far in the picture book market. If your illustrator is sub-par then it really doesn't matter how wonderful your words are. No one is going to purchase a picture book if they think it looks unprofessional. Fortunately for everyone Klein's illustrations are a nice mix of cute and accurate. She plays with angles and perspective enough to keep the eye constantly in motion. The ratio of animal sizes in this book is consistent as well. According to the bookflap of this title, Sherry Crawley, Director of Education for the School and Family Programs at Zoo Atlanta, went through this book to verify the accuracy of the information. Certainly the back matter is fun and nicely educational. Still, though this section is useful in many ways, I would have appreciated more time spent discussing skinks and their amazing regeneration abilities. Just a quick sentence or two about the critters would have been sufficient to my needs. All that aside, "Little Skink's Tail" is a nice example of a simple idea brought to life in a picture book format with plenty of factual matter to complement the fiction. An ideal purchase for those parts of the country overridden with skinks, and those parts that know nothing about them and would benefit from a well-written story. A book worth noticing.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Little Skink's problem, December 16, 2007
A hungry crow tries to make Little Skink's Tail a meal. Little Skink tricks the crow by dropping her beautiful tail and hiding. Little Skink then imagines what she would look like with various types of tails of other animals in her woodland habitat. After considering how the other tails would look on her body, Little Skink discovers that her tail has grown back just the right size for a Skink! The students in my fifth grade class had been creating their own story plots about an animal they had been researching. They included information about predator/prey relationships, habitats, ecosystems, behaviors and food needs. The students had done much thinking about a problem that their story's main character would need to confront. When I read them, Little Skink's Tail by Janet Halfmann, the students were delighted. They recognized the plot
and enjoyed how the Little Skink imagined wearing other tails. The students thought it was "neat" how Janet Halfmann took factual science information and developed it into a "tale" touched by a bit of magic and wit. Even though the students realized that the audience was most likely intended for 5-7 year olds, they felt the plot was interesting enough for older students. The students enjoyed the illustrations by Laurie Klein that extended their understanding of habitats and animal interrelationships. They also enjoyed the activities at the end and wanted to try them out. As a teacher, I appreciated the clarity of the plot line, the accuracy of the information, and the simplicity of the theme. The story does not overwhelm the students with too much information, but highlights how a plot can be developed around one significant event.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Endearing!, December 14, 2007
This review is from: Little Skink's Tail (Paperback)
Oh no, Little Skink's Tail is stolen! She is scared and sad. Can she get another tail? What kind of tail would she like next? A skunk's tail, a turtle's tail, an owl's tail? No tails she sees in the forest seems just right. Luckily, she is a lizard. Do you know how lizards get their tails? This book will tell you.
Author Janet Halfmann and Illustrator Laurie Allen Klein do a splendid job in telling this tale and in painting not only Little Skink, but also all of the forest and its inhabitants. Therefore, the young reader will learn all about a whole woodland habitat. One matching activity in the back goes further in explaining the uses of many other animal's tails, for instance a rabbit raises its cottontail to tell other rabbits about trouble ahead. This book is a terrific addition to a home or classroom, ages 5 - 8. Just think how wonderful a forest or lizard unit would be in a classroom. One can just see a diorama created by children based on the book!
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