Meet the Meerkat

My 2.5 year old and I used to watch Meerkat Manor together, so I picked this up when I saw it in a used bookstore. The text is pretty spare and repetitive, but because of this my daughter has memorized a lot of it and "reads" it to herself. The drawings are clear and fun without being cartoony. I would recommend this for your youngest nature lover.

When I am clicking though the television channels ("Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on") I confess I will screech to a halt to watch 'Meerkat Manor' which is why I wanted to take a look at this new book. Darrin Lunde provides lots of meerkat facts, presented in a question-answer format. Little Meerkat, what do you eat? I eat insects, spiders, and scorpians. I smell them with my nose. Then I dig them up with my feet. what do you eat? I was struck by how well the format of the book lends itself to the Big 6 research model Step 1 which begins by listing the questions that need answers during the research process. What animals eat, where they live, what they look like are the staples of young researchers' animal reports. The book itself could be a model for the product or Step 5. Patricia Wynnes illustrations capture the expressive faces of the meerkats and their movements. I would absolutely add this book to my 599.74 section.