Winter, Spring, Summer & Fall - This Books Covers It All!
Written: Nov 26 '04 (Updated Nov 26 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Beautiful illustrations, covers all seasons, clear overlapping pages.
Cons: A little on the expensive side.
The Bottom Line: Want to teach your child about the seasons? This is an entertaining and educational way to do it!
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| Freak369's Full Review: Weather Books |
All of my boys were early readers and that led to a huge library of books, most of which they've outgrown. Since we are moving in about two weeks I decided to weed through the books we've accumulated over the years and get rid of the dead weight. One book that I won't be parting with is called Weather; it's a fantastic books that teaches children about the four seasons, has beautiful illustrations, is easy to read and has a clear painted page that flips over from the left to the right to show some of the details of the season. I'll be honest, this isn't anything that will win awards to cause your child to increases their I.Q. level but for me, it's a sentimental attachment. This was the first book that my youngest read from cover to cover without any help, could you get rid of something that had that kind of memory attached to it?
Weather
This is a book that's written for the three to six year old crowd and will teach them the basics of the four seasons; winter, spring, summer and fall. But there's more to it than that, much more! The first thing to know about this book is that it's hard covered and has a spiral binding, no need to worry about little ones getting their fingers caught on the binding because it's recessed into the spine. The second thing to know is that between the pages there's a clear page that's painted; you flip that over and it shows you different variations of the season. A great example of this is spring; on the left side you see cute lambs in a green pasture grazing and on the right side you see a similar scene only it's raining. When you flip the clear page to the left side the clouds and raindrops cover the scene and you read about rain showers and that they don't last that long. To me this really increases the visual stimulation that a child gets and they get exposed to some of the different things that happen within the various seasons.
The book also teaches kids about things that happen as a result of weather, like rainbows, thunderstorms, how leaves change in autumn, how fog is created and how the hours of daylight change in the winter. This is a great thing for kids who might live in an area where there aren't distinctive changes in the seasons; little Annabelle had only seen snow a few times when she started reading this book so she learned about snowflakes, that no two are alike and that snowplows are used in places that get a lot of snow. If you have younger kids you can read this to them and let them flip the pages, this book has seen a lot of use over the years and ever child that's read it really got a kick out of the clear pages and how it changed the overall look of the page. Since I mentioned that this has gotten a lot of use I might as well add that this had held up remarkable. I chalk that up to the hard cover, recessed spine and thick pages. Outside of a small dent on the back corner of the book, this thing looks as good as new. I can't remember where I picked this up or how much I paid for it but it has a price on the back cover, $10.95. That might sound like a lot to pay for a book like this but it is money well spent, especially if you have kids like mine that ask a lot of questions about what they are reading about. This is a great way to springboard to other things like science and nature studies.
If I had to voice one complaint about this book is that it skips over some things like when animals have babies, when plants start to sprout and things like tornados. I know that this is a basic books about weather but they could have tried to work in a little more information for kids that aren't exposed to all the seasons. Another thing that sort of struck me as odd is that they really went overboard on winter; the other seasons get four pages a piece and winter gets nine, yes, you read that right, nine pages. Hey, I like winter as much as the next person but I really wish they would have evened things out a little. On the up side, the first page of each of the seasons serves as an bridge of sorts and tells what happens when one season crosses over into another. "Autumn turns to winter, the coldest season of the year. Days are short. Nights are long". This helps to give kids an explanation of what happens when one ends and another begins but in the case of my kids, it was something that spurned a lot of questions. They asked why the leaves changed and why some were brown and some were yellow, what happened to birds in the winter and after reading about thunderstorms in the summer section, they started asking how the waves were made.
Things To Know
• This book was first published in France under the title "Le Temps" in 1989 and was picked up and published by Scholastic in 1991. This book is put out by Cartwheel Books, an early learning brand of Scholastic.
• Other titles in the First Discovery Book series include: Cats, Colors, The Egg, Flowers, The Tree, Dinosaurs, Bears, Fruit and The Earth and Sky. You can read more about these books at www.scholastic.com.
The Bottom Line
Like I said, this is one book that I won't be parting with when we move. When I showed this to my youngest and asked him if he remembered reading it he gave me that look - you know - the "I'm not a baby" look, rolled his eyes and walked out the room. If you have a preschooler that's curious about the seasons and weather this is a great book to check out. Even if they can't read they can learn from the illustrations and flip over pages. If I had to make this purchase again I'd grumble a little about the price but I'd buy it again knowing that it's entertaining and educational. If you can get a child excited about reading, learning and asking questions at an early age you'll be setting them up for an extremely successful educational path. If your child likes this book then you will definitely want to check out the other ones in the series!
As always, thanks for the visit ...
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2004 Freak369
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Recommended:
Yes
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