Muddy Boots – serie

What animals forage by night and sleep by day? This children’s picture book describes the nocturnal lives of nine common animals: foxes, porcupines, racoons, skunks, opossums, bobcats, owls, mouse, and rabbits. Join the adult animals guiding their children through the forest during the dark of night. The book includes information on the common names of the animal’s offspring (i.e. fox:kit).

In this re-imagined version of The Twelve Days of Christmas, winter wildlife is observed as the snow comes. What animals do you think you might see? Do you think bears will be included? Why or why not? The only way to find out is to read or sing along as animals watch their world get blanketed by gentle layers of snow.

Mya McClure, brave science girl, has a passion for nature. One night, as Mya sleeps with her window open, tiny creatures enter her room—toads! They are escaping the forest near her school, which is in the process of being cut down and ruining their habitat. Mya scoops up the toads and takes them to her basement while she thinks about what to do next. The next day at school, Mya asks her teacher, Mrs. Russell, how to create a new habitat for the toads. So instructed, she and Mrs. Russell dig a hole in the forest and free the toads. While foraging for sticks, Mrs. Russell upsets a bee hive and the swarm chases her back to the toads. With a portable fan, Mya redirects the bees to the toads, who eagerly devour the bees. The following day Mrs. Russell shows Mya a letter from her state legislator which says all tree removal in the forest will end, and the toads’ habitat will be saved.

Visiting the zoo is a quintessential childhood experience filled with wonder and learning. For most kids, the zoo is the only place they will see exotic and wild animals. It is also a place where they can feel connected to the natural world and learn the importance of taking care of wildlife and the environment. Going to the Zoo is a 1,060-word nonfiction children’s picture book designed for ages 5-9. Using informative text, plus blurbs and tidbits of interesting animal and zoo insight, Going to the Zoo follows two young friends as they visit the zoo and learn about the different ways zoos care for their animals. Vivid illustrations bring the zoo and its activities to life as the friends explore everything from how zoos feed their animals to why zoo animals do “tricks.” Aimed toward early to middle elementary students, Going to the Zoo’s content is less dense than Michael George’s Life at the Zoo but it is more sophisticated and challenging than Blake Hoena’s The Zoo Book. Going to the Zoo was reviewed by teachers, educators, and Denver Zoo professionals for content and age appropriateness.

When a child walks down a city block, they might see a natural wasteland. A sea of gray with no signs of life. A solitary, sickly, over-pruned tree confined to a square of dirt penned in by concrete. However, what a child might not see are the precarious but sturdy squirrel nests above their heads at the tops of gnarled and crooked trees. The perches of raptors on the tallest buildings. Rookeries for pigeon chicks nestled on parking garage ceiling beams. The white drippings under a tree cavity that give away an owl tucked inside. Or the crevice in a rock wall leading to the cozy nook of a family of rodents. In fact, most cities are teeming with nature if you know where and how to look. City Safari will teach middle grade readers just that. It will equip children with the perfect tool for visualizing their city’s natural side—revealing a world of urban wildlife hidden in plain sight.Part natural history guide, part training manual, and part hands-on fieldwork guide, Wild in the Streets will take readers on a quest through the wilds of their city, leaving them with lifelong naturalist skills.

Lively writing, colorful photos, and bright borders make this craft book particularly inviting. The real fun begins with Linda Kranz offering step-by-step, well-illustrated directions for decorating small, flat stones with flowers, animals, heart shapes, sports motifs, foods, places, holiday designs, and more. The finished items are perfect gifts, which young children, perennially in search of inexpensive presents, will appreciate. By providing hours of creative entertainment at little cost, this offering is sure to be popular with crafty children and their teachers and caregivers.

This delightful board book by the author/artist of Goodnight Seahorse teaches children about hibernating animals.

My Little Book of Manatees is a delightful story about a new family of manatees. From the newborn manatee s first lessons in taking care of himself to the manatees playful adventures in warm spring waters, this beautifully illustrated book is ideal for introducing young children to the wonders of nature.

This is a delightful story about a new family of bald eagles. From newborn's first lessons in life to the first solo flight, this beautifully illustrated book is ideal for introducing young children to the wonders of nature.

This is a beautifully illustrated book that introduces children to the wonder of nature in winter: A Fox Peeks Out of His Den at a White Forest/ All is Silent/A Buck Stands Camouflaged/A great horned owl sits on a nearby branch/ The fox climbs out of this den/ He passes squirrels eating/ He passes mice foraging/ The fox reaches a stream where he takes a cold drink/ A family of mallard ducks swims by/ Across the stream, river otters rest on a rock/ Suddenly, the earth trembles. Towering over the fox, a moose takes a cold drink/ His thirst quenched, the fox heads home/ He passes rabbits hiding in a hollow tree/ Chattering crows greet the fox outside his den/ After the snowfall.

“All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on The Hudson River,” President Franklin Roosevelt once declared. For it was at his home in Hyde Park, New York that FDR could indulge in his favorite avocation—“tree farmer.” This book introduces children to FDR’s love of nature through a lifetime in which he oversaw the planting of over a million trees on his estate. It tells of a childhood hiking the trails through his forest, later widening those trails into roads after polio deprived him of the use of his legs and only able to get around by car. It describes the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression, which came to be known as “Roosevelt’s Tree Army.” It also tells the story of how FDR sent England’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill a Norway spruce one Christmas to cheer up the English people. Today, FDR’s love of trees is remembered at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Historic Site in Hyde Park, New York, where many of the trees he planted still rise on the grounds and surrounding forest.

When a pesky tumbleweed drops in for lunch one day, hilarity ensues. In this zany retelling of the popular folk tune “The Cat Came Back” what starts as a small problem grows into a giant conundrum as one tumbleweed turns into ten, then twenty, then thousands. Granny and her two grandchildren do their best to rid their farm of the scratchy menaces, but the harder they try, the more the tumbleweeds take over. The text’s infectious rhythm is brought to life by colorful, funny illustrations. The combination makes for a rollicking read that will have children and parents rolling around with laughter.

Dan is the biggest dump truck in the whole wide world. He can fit one hundred elephants in his tipper, and his horn is louder than thunder! Dan wants more than anything to be helpful and work on a construction site, but he’s far too big to help build houses, and he’s even too big to build a bridge. Come ride with Dan in search of new friends and his perfect job.

What do Southwest critters do when Mama says, "It's time for bed?"Every critter—even children—can balk at bedtime. Here, the adorable animals of the Southwest comically define what not to do at bedtime. Cuddle up with this delightful, rhyming lullaby that will help even the most restless among us look forward to bedtime.

This is a fresh and exciting approach to learning the alphabet using the fascinating animals and spectacular places of the American Southwest. A delightful mix of fun and informative facts is combined with stunning photography. "Now I know My ABCs" will never be the same again!

This book is a narrative told from the point of view of a young girl who is showing her visiting cousin a coastal salt marsh. The children visit the marsh every day for four days, slowly building their knowledge of the ecosystem. As they make their way through the tall marsh grass, the two children slip and slide on marsh mud, discover clusters of ribbed mussels at the base of the grass, and watch as fiddler crabs skitter from burrow to burrow around the edge of a creek. Representative of intertidal marshes throughout the world, the coastal salt marsh described in this book is typically shared by both land and marine mammals, presenting a unique ecosystem at the water's edge.

It’s night. It’s dark. It’s time to go indoors—or is it? The outdoors at night can be a scary place, but this book will help young readers investigate the mysterious nature of night. To explore the night, it would be great to have eyes like an owl, the sensitive nose of a deer, and feet that can move as silently as a fox. Humans aren’t quite as good as nocturnal animals at navigating the darkness, but we can come surprisingly close. Our senses are much sharper than we realize, if we learn how to use them. Some scientists are even researching the sensory abilities of human hair!Each chapter of the book spotlights a different nocturnal creature. And while learning about animals’ adaptations for navigating the world of night, young readers discover their own surprising abilities. Years of teaching children in the outdoors has given the author, renowned environmental educator Anita Sanchez, firsthand experience in introducing students to the terrors and joys of nature at night. She has led kids on night walks in a variety of habitats, including urban settings. Based on these experiences, the book describes night-time landscapes and the nocturnal animals that inhabit them, from desert coyotes to the frog chorus in a backyard pond—and a corner of the bathroom at midnight where a spider lurks.Readers will encounter:--The great horned owl, who can spot the twitch of a mouse’s tail in almost total darkness. --The Gila monster, who prowls the desert night using its tongue to locate prey.--The super-sensitive ears of a bullfrog (yes, frogs have ears!) --The delicate sense of touch of a spider, capturing its prey by feeling the slightest vibrations of its web. Sidebars called “You Can Do It!” offer fun and active ways for kids to explore their own senses—learning more about their own eyes, ears, nose, and senses of touch and taste. --While using crayons at night, can your eyes tell red from green? --Can you hold completely still for an entire minute, like a fox stalking its prey? --Could you follow the scent trail of an onion across the back yard?--Can you find sounds in the dark? Learn to use the “big ears” technique to locate sounds with accuracy.

Where the ocean laps up against the beach there is a community of diverse sea creatures that live together, from the sea star hunting for clams to the moon snail laying its eggs beneath the sand. John Himmelman's beautiful watercolor paintings illustrate the delicate balance that exists at the seashore.

A child’s first introduction to creatures of the sea as a seahorse makes its way home to “bed.”

When Mother Duck calls on Grandfather Duck to entertain her three ducklings, Grandfather Duck obliges with a riotous visit to a nearby pond, where the ducklings tempt fate by taunting a cat, trying to eat a poisonous plant, and attempting to fly off of a very large rock. In each case Grandfather Duck comes to the rescue and teaches the ducklings a valuable life lesson.

Two boys, Jonathan and Christopher, live in the southern Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina. These mountains are among the oldest on Earth and the highest can reach over 6,000 feet in elevation. Many streams and rivers are born in these mountains. One day while exploring near a stream they discover a type of salamander they had never seen before. The next day they take the salamander to a biologist who studies the health of rivers and streams in Great Smoky Mountains National park, and there begins their adventure learning about salamanders and their habitats.