What is Ezri reading?

N is for nonfiction.
This week I bring you the joys of nonfiction.

If you parent a preschooler and have been hanging in the picture books and not over in the nonfiction section, it’s time to make your move because there are some great reads over in that true stuff. Many written at a very basic level.

Feet by Nicola Whittaker
“Different creatures have different feet. Some have flippers. Some have paws. Some have toes. Some have claws.” Each brightly colored page has an animal or at least the feet of the animal with a statement about what sort of feet it has. “Some feet are small. Some feet are big. Some feet can hop. Some feet can dig.” The book has an appendix with a few quick facts on each of the creatures featured and despite its simplicity there is even an index. Ezri enjoys the simple rhymes and looking at the feet of a koala, frog, mole, mouse, elephant and so on.
This is a series so Whitaker has also done Creature Features on Noses, Tails and Hair.

Why Are Animals Blue? by Melissa Stewart
Each two page spread features a blue animal and talks about why it might be blue. The Blue Shark’s color helps it hide in the ocean. The Blue-Tongued Skink sticks its bright blue tongue out to surprise predators. Ezri may not understand all the information in this one, but with prompting she points out what’s blue on each page. The text is sparse enough that it fits with her attention span and the color theme is perfect. This is from the Rainbow of Animals series and there books about other colors to be read.

Spot the Difference: Eyes by Daniel Nunn
This is Ezri’s pick for the best of these three books. She has memorized sections of it and learned what a stalk is from this book which explains that crabs have eyes on stalks. The text is very simple. “This is an owl. It has big eyes. This is a mole. It has small eyes. This is a frog. It has bulging eyes.” The photos are big and vivid. There seem to be others in the Spot the Difference series from Acorn a division of Heinemann publishing on fruits, roots, leaves, flowers, and animals. When we start gardening this spring, I’ll bring home some of the ones on flora for Ezri.

Ezri is also enjoying reading Wild Animal Baby magazine from the National Wildlife Federation. It has simple I Spy game pages where you find each particular animal in a scene. Also, throughout the magazine Sammy the Skunk hides five times on various pages and Ezri loves finding Sammy.

Here’s Ezri helping bake chocolate chip cookies for the first time. She enjoyed helping eat them too.