Rain, Rain, Rain Forest [Hardcover]

Brenda Z. Guiberson (Author), Steve Jenkins (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up

Splitter, splat, splash! While they sleep, the forest fills with the sounds of the night creatures. Sloop! A silky anteater slurps up thousands of ants. Flap flap! A bat bites a fig. Hssss. A snake thrusts its tongue to taste the air. The air carries the taste of mouse. Everywhere night creatures with huge bright eyes slither and slurp through the darkness.

Come explore the rain forest!

A downpour wakes the creatures of the rain forest. Howler monkeys roar and drink the water that drips from nearby leaves. Birds with rainbow beaks fly in search of shelter. A poison dart frog finds a tiny pool where her tadpoles can grow. In a place that gets twenty feet of rain a year, it is a way of life.

Vibrant, colorful collages and an inviting text take young readers on an exhilarating tour of the tropical rain forest.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 4–This eye-catching picture book transports readers to a tropical rain forest. Smoothly incorporating a great deal of information, the text follows creatures such as a sloth, capuchin monkeys, and a poison-dart frog as they move through their habitat. Guiberson conveys the relationships among different animals by describing their activities at various times of day. Small dramas such as a squabble over nest space reveal the continual change and movement in this environment. Effective use of onomatopoeia further enhances the narrative with forest sounds. Jenkins uses his signature collage style to bring this realm alive for viewers. Although his humans seem a bit stiff, they are minor figures in the overall portrayal of the lush, green world. Even collections with several volumes about rain forests will want this introduction.–Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* K-Gr. 3. "Splitter, splat, splash!" As a rainstorm "thrums" through the treetops, a tropical forest comes alive. Vibrant words and sensory impressions bring the creatures' noisy cacophony and slithering, swooping motions up close, while gracefully incorporated facts convey a surprising amount of information about basic survival. Each spread describes rain forest animals, from tiny scissor-jawed ants to white-tailed deer as they search for food, fend off enemies, and protect their young. Guiberson doesn't shy away from the realities of predators and death: an eagle carries off a cute capuchin monkey in her talons--dinner for her hungry chicks. But the author balances the heavier facts with lighter ones. The proportions of the animals in Jenkins' paper-cut collages may occasionally confuse children: on one spread, a mouse and sloth appear to be the same size. But the artist's colorful, textured images create a rich sense of atmosphere, and the precise details and lively compositions will easily draw children back to the text. Final spreads of a scientist, suspended in the forest canopy as she studies medicinal plants, reinforce how humans, too, are part of life in the wild forest. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); 1st edition (April 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805065822
• ISBN-13: 978-0805065824
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #424,375 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #92 in Books > Children's Books > Science, Nature & How It Works > Nature > Forests & Trees

More About the Author

As a child, Brenda Z. Guiberson never thought about being an author or illustrator but wondered how she might become a jungle explorer. Much of her time was spent swimming in the Columbia River, watching birds and salmon, searching for arrowheads, and building things or taking them apart. She was curious about many things and had a lot of patience for watching.

In school, she loved science classes. But as she put herself through the University of Washington, it was easier to schedule evening English classes than afternoon science labs. She graduated with B.A. degrees in English and Fine Art.

Her son brought home stacks of books for reading. When he went off to elementary school, she volunteered in the school library and classroom. All these kids and books got her interested in writing for children. After taking exciting trips that involved a fifty-foot cactus, hungry alligators and sunset-colored spoonbills, she wanted to create books for children that would be like a field trip. Early books includeTurtle People, Cactus Hotel and Spoonbill Swamp. Like all the books that followed, they are filled with dramatic detail that came from doing extensive research.

Research, to her, is a great adventure. Finally she gets to be a jungle explorer. It includes talking to experts, looking through dusty collections and reading books. But her favorite part is getting out in the field. She has counted sea turtle eggs at 3 a.m. in Costa Rica, observed dancing flamingos on a salty island in the Bahamas, spent a night in a haunted lighthouse, kissed a dolphin on the snout, and watched graceful leeches swim in a boreal bog. All of this is part of an effort to create surprise, wonder and intrigue in her books. The other part of the effort involves revision, revision and more revision until the book flows with a sense of poetry blended with accurate information.

Whether the research leads to emperor penguins, flamingos, or mummies, she finds stories of wonder, adventure and survival everywhere. They are in the connections between plants and animals, in the links between past and present, in every hot, cold, salty and wet environment from the biggest to the smallest creature.