A Bold Carnivore: An Alphabet of Predators

A fabulous way to connect the "A, b, c" with actual words - especially for my animal crazy four year old boy. He loves seeing the animal & what they eat, & enjoys telling me that Alligator starts with A, etc. It is only North American carnivores, so there were a couple even I didn't know (English Mum!), so we both learnt those together!

You could choose to wait until preschool to teach the ABC's to your child, but it's not necessary with such great home teaching tools as this book. This is a great book for 2 to 6 year olds, to go beyond the usual A is for Apple and Z is for Zebra.The layout of this book is one letter of the alphabet on the top of each page, both upper and lower case in the corners. An illustration of an animal dominates the middle, while sidebar illustrations of it's prey bracket like a frame. A few short lines of text on the bottom explain a little bit about the hunting habits of the animal. Example: Merganser. "A hungry merganser pops to the surface. Only fish, frogs or crayfish that hide carefully escape this diving duck."A Bold Carnivore was given to my son at the age of 2. He was really more attracted to the illustrations of animals at that time, which are detailed and realistic. A child's mind retains information amazingly well at that age, and he was able to memorize the lines in short order. We would point to the letters at the top of each page - one in upper case and one in lower - and name them as we went, then naming the animal pictured below. This was a great way of learning letters and associating each one with a specific animal. My 4 year old son now also knows twenty six obscure varieties of carnivores, what they eat and their habitats.Andrea, aka Merribelle