Zooborns: Book and Website

Who doesn't love cute baby animals?  In my quest for great nonfiction for elementary kids, I came across ZOOBORNS (the book and the blog) from 2 different sources.  During my last visit to Cover to Cover, Bill at Literate Lives had ZOOBORNS: ZOO BABIES FROM AROUND THE WORLD by Andrew Bleiman and Chris Eastland on his pile of books.  I immediately ordered a copy.  That same weekend, I learned about the blog ZOOBORNS from Larry Ferlazzo on Twitter.

The book, ZOOBORNS, is a great picture book for children. Each page in the book focuses on one specific baby animal born in a zoo somewhere in the world. 4-6 lines of text accompany each animal photo.  The end of the book gives more information about each animal, their home zoo, and their conservation status.  I imagine this book will be checked out at all times in the library. This is a great nonfiction book for young children.  It is all that I look for when looking for nonfiction for young kids--great photos, interesting information and accessible text. It would also make a great nonfiction read aloud.

The blog ZOOBORNS is quite fun and I shared it with several 3rd and 4th grade classes this week as we are trying to expand their nonfiction reading lives. Our kids are very honest about preferring fiction over nonfiction but my theory is that they haven't yet found interesting, accessible nonfiction text.  So many of the kids were excited about ZOOBORNS. This site highlights different baby animals from zoos around the world. It is updated often so there is always something new to read and learn. The side tags help readers who want specific information.  Readers can follow a certain kind of animal or a specific zoo.  This site is packed and seems accessible to middle grade readers.  It is tempting to just can the blog and enjoy the adorable photos but I am hoping that this site encourages children to read the text that accompanies the photos.

If you are looking for any last minute gifts, this would be a great gift book.  And I just noticed that there is another in this ZOOBORNS series. How exciting! I'll have to order it right now..