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Saturday, December 4, 2010

KINGDOM: MICROMONSTERS- EXTREME ENCOUNTERS WITH INVISIBLE ARMIES



I teach in an urban setting. With kids who don't have a lot of access to books. And kids who don't see the adults around them reading. Kids who don't see much use for reading in their lives. I'm always on the lookout, then, for books that will grab kids' attention. Stop them in their tracks. Have them stopping by my office to ask if they can borrow "that book I showed them this morning."

This morning, I found a sure winner. If I could describe it in just a few words, they would be:

EEW! GROSS! DISGUSTING! NASTY!

YES!

KINGDOM: MICROMONSTERS is a book I know that even my most reluctant readers are absolutely, positively going to love. The book is divided into two sections: "Meet the Beasts" features some of the world's nastiest insects. Still grosser is "Life On You, " which highlights creatures like the human head louse, or tapeworm. Eew, eew, and eew!!!!!

Each two-page spread features a different adventure into grossness. There is a gigantic photo diagram of the creature, with special features highlighted. There is a simple line drawing, done on graph paper, with the creature's height and size. There's also a scale that rates the animal on intelligence, strength,speed, agility, endurance, and evasion. Tabs that seem almost like page on an internet site feature things like habitats, predators, prey, and up close photographs. Each spread includes a small text box that identifies superpowers, (e.g a giraffe necked weevil has a long neck and power crane), equipment (the human head louse has hooked feet, a blunt head, and grinding mouth parts), weaknesses (the dustmite requires at least 65% humidity), and a fact (the tapeworm can have up to 4,000 segments and each segment contains thousands of eggs!)

Watch out Elijah, Chris, Manny, Alberto, Manuel-- this one is going in my bag to take to school on Monday morning!

For a review of another book in this series: KINGDOM: SAVAGE SAFARI.

REVIEW COPY PROVIDED BY PUBLISHER

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