Watching Desert Wildlife (Younger Reader) [Paperback]

Jim Arnosky (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up | Series: Younger Reader

Beckoned by its alluring landscape, Jim Arnosky paints and describes the desert’s most famous residents—Gila monsters, snakes, lizards, and a variety of birds of prey. A keen observer, he also spies some creatures that may surprise readers: the desert deer, pronghorn antelope, and bighorn sheep.

Arnosky’s vibrant, engaging artwork is complemented by his lively first-person narrative. He adds a wealth of enlightening facts about desert creatures to make this a fascinating picture of the American southwest.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With one to two spreads per species, the volumes reflect the authorartist's meticulous research in both text and detailed illustrations. Ages 6-12. (Apr.)
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-6-As readers have come to expect, Arnosky's writing is as pictorial as his art, a lively, anecdotal yet factual ramble through nature. The author brings the varied creatures of the Southwestern deserts vividly to life through his large detailed paintings, brief text, and personal commentary. Sometimes the art sweeps across two pages, forming a colorful background for the narrative. Even when contained within neat borders, something always breaks the confining lines such as a squirrel's nose, a hummingbird's beak, or a gila monster's beaded tail. Caroline Arnold's Watching Desert Wildlife (Carolrhoda, 1994) covers similar material, but with photographs, and lacks Arnosky's particular artist's vision. Following him, readers will learn to look more closely at their own surroundings, and will look forward to their own visit to the desert.
Ruth S. Vose, San Francisco Public Library
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Paperback: 32 pages
• Publisher: National Geographic Children's Books (April 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0792267370
• ISBN-13: 978-0792267379
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 0.1 x 10.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #814,863 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful!, November 3, 1999

By 

Reader (CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Watching Desert Wildlife (Watching Wildlife With Jim Arnosky) (Hardcover)

We were absorbed by the beautiful life like illustrations. Good information. We bought an extra for a birthday gift.

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous Illustrations, Nice Overview of Desert Wildlife, September 11, 2009

By 

HeatherHH - See all my reviews

This review is from: Watching Desert Wildlife (Younger Reader) (Paperback)

Like all of Jim Arnosky's books, the illustrations in this book are outstanding. They are very realistic, vivid, and engaging, but also add a lot to the text. There are illustrations of some of the birds and snakes and lizards that are made to be life-sized, which makes visualization much easier! Different species of snakes, birds, etc are placed side-by-side to make comparisons easy. We see close-up illustrations of features like a pit vipers heat-sensing pits, and the differing beaks of different types of birds. Wonderful!

The text is also very interesting, but here I would want to add a caveat. The age range given for this book is ages 6-12. I think 6-year-olds will enjoy the illustrations and can grasp much of the text, but they definitely need a grown-up explaining some complex words like uninhibited, venomous, buff-colored, instinctively, clamps, unmolested, etc. Don't get me wrong! I think it's wonderful for children of this age to be exposed to words like this, but they will need some of it clarified a bit. If you want a more straight-forward read-aloud, you'd want to wait a year or two longer, and for independent reading, they should probably be reading on a 5th grade level or higher.

With that said, my 8-year-old and 6-year-old both enjoyed this book and learned a lot from it, and as part of our schooling, I will read through it again in a couple years. I would highly recommend this book to those with elementary or middle-school aged children. With outstanding illustrations and informative text, this book provides a good overview of desert wildlife.