Baby Animals

Seymour Simon has written over 200 science books written at children's various levels of reading skills. Baby Animals is Level 1 for beginning readers. But I am here to tell you it is not beginning readers who love Simon's books--it is pre-readers. I am a librarian for 3, 4, and 5-year-olds who love his books. They love the pictures, yes, but they love the information. I will read each page, then we talk about the content. Afterwards, I hold a short quiz which they love. A baby horse is called...A Foal! A puppy is born...Blind! Who does a duckling follow after it is born...The first thing it sees! How big is a baby rabbit at birth...That big (holding up fingers). It is amazing to behold! As a side note: Simon works with a reading specialist and finds all the photographs from professionals to whom he gives credit. That is a great deal of work. Hats off to you, Mr. Simon, and all your 200-plus books!

The first thing that grabs the reader are the pictures: as with all Seymour Simon books, the photographs in "Baby Animals" are marvelous. The appealing subject of baby animals is written for very beginning readers, but it provides interesting information even at that level (great for my son who was not a big fan of Bob Books and the like). The tear-out (perforated card stock) "trading cards" at the back of the book were a fun addition. Not quite the best book in the series (the one on firefighting comes to mind as one with more information and more appeal to my son at least), but still quite enjoyable.