Master Brooks's Bookses: MY FIRST DAY

          Grammy Dee came to visit me last weekend, so you know what that means: I must do a book review. Actually, I don’t mind because I love books and I enjoy sharing my thoughts about them. Today I’m reviewing My First Day by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. My Aunt Audrey bought this book for me at the San Diego Zoo and sent it to me for my birthday. (Did you catch that? Birthday? Yes, I’m now three years old!) If you can't make it to San Diego to pick up a copy, don't fret. You can order it on Amazon.

            It’s ironic that Aunt Audrey sent this particular book to me now that I’m such a big boy, because My First Day is all about what animals do when they are tiny babies—only one day old. On the day they're born, some animals are  as helpless as human babies and must depend on their parents for everything. On their first day, kittens can’t see OR hear. Other animals, like the kiwi, are expected to survive on their own the minute they hatch out of an egg. I think that would be very scary! I learned many other interesting facts about baby animals from this book. For instance, did you know on the day a baby zebra is born, his mother memorizes his unique stripe pattern and can pick him out of a herd of hundreds of zebras? I also learned the names of unusual animals. Do you know what a sifaka or a capybara is? No? Well, read this book and you will! And you can get further information about the animals from the illustrated guide in the back.

            I promise you will love learning all the fascinating facts about the baby animals in this book. You will also enjoy the colorful pictures of the babies and their parents.

Aunt Audrey also sent me this cool t-shirt from the zoo. If
I look unhappy in this picture, it's not because I don't like
my shirt or my book. It's because I don't like standing still
long enough to get my picture taken.

Master Brooks's Bookses: Whose Tail on the Trail at Grand Canyon

Whose Tail... is published by the Grand
Canyon Association, a group of very
nice people who work to preserve and
protect Grand Canyon National Park.

             My Mamaw and Papaw recently visited the Grand Canyon. I didn’t get to go with them, but they brought me a really neat book, entitled Whose Tail on the Trail at Grand Canyon, written by Midji Stephenson and illustrated by Kenneth Spengler.

            Reading Whose Tail... isn’t as exciting as visiting the park in person, but it’s close! Colorful drawings capture the grandeur and diversity of the canyon and its inhabitants. And the pictures of the “critters” are so accurate that I feel that when I do finally get to hike the canyon, I’ll be able to identify many of them. Especially by their tails! That’s a cool aspect of the book. The author and illustrator build “suspense” by showing an animal’s tail on one page. Then you turn to the next page to discover which animal the tail belongs to!

 

Studying the animals on the
trail.

           But here’s the really cool part. The story includes rhyme, rhythm, and repetition—three of my favorite literary devices. Not only do these techniques make a story fun to read and hear, but they also make it easy to memorize. So when my Grammy Dee came to visit me, I played a trick on her. I recited the lines from memory, and she thought I was reading! Shhh...please don’t tell her my secret. She already suspected I was a genius. Now she's convinced I am!

 

Want to hear me "read" my book? Click on the video!