Customer Reviews

O is for Orca: A Pacific Northwest Alphabet Book

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Really nice pictures that kids can relate to, clear and self explanatory. Text gives a bit of information about the animals and other things mentioned. Good for young readers. Good lead into for animal study.

This is the alphabet the Pacific Northwest way: A is for auklet, B for black bear, C for coyote...from Alaska thru British Columbia & Washington down to Oregon, the natural world is featured in glorious photos & simple, illustrative text. Lovely full-color, full page photos of an eagle, a Haida totem pole with a glorious stag before it, a misty enchanting view of Mount Ranier, a mountainside of Xerophyllum tenax. A wonderful way to learn our ABCs. .................

This is an interesting and attractive introductory book on animals of the Northwest for young readers. However, since it's written at about 3.5 reading level, it may be too difficult for its intended audience.

Also, it's a bit of a stretch as an alphabet book, since the alphabet is merely used as a vehicle for tying the photos and text together. It works for single words like bear, coyote, deer and eagle, however most children won't relate to fir tree as an "F" word, since the noun is actually "tree." This quirk surfaces again with listings like Haida totem pole for the letter "H," Northern spotted owl for "N," and Mt. Rainier for "R." It gets stretched further when Xerophyllum tenax appears for "X," and then the child is told it's "the scientific name for bear grass."

Having said that, students love to listen this book and look at the pictures. It works well as a read-aloud and a discussion starter. I used successfully as a companion book with "Northwest Animal Babies" for first grade students in our elementary school library. This should be in every school library in the Pacific Northwest.