Shells! Shells! Shells!

We read this today and absolutely loved it. A young bear and his mom go to the beach and he asks all kinds of questions about how shells are formed. His mother gives very simple yet clear explanations. We learned a TON of stuff and it was so easy for the kids to understand. There are several jokes sprinkled throughout which my kids loved. The pictures are cute paper cut-outs but the shells are actual photographs and are very clear so you get a good feel for what they actually look like. When we were done we grabbed our small shell collection and they immediately started sorting them into bivalve and univalve groups and talked about how gastropods live in univalve shells. They looked for indications of when the mollusk had growth spurts and for pigmentation as well. I was thrilled to see how much they'd understood and then to see them apply it. Very highly recommended for elementary age kids. Older kids may not like the "little kid" type look. Even my 2-yr-old sat in fascination. I'm going to look into other works by this author. Very impressed. *taken from my review at goodreads

Nancy Elizabeth Wallace's SHELLS! SHELLS! SHELLS! tells of Buddy and his mother, who spend a day at the beach collecting and learning about shells. The two bears have a fine time and kids also receive a fine introduction to the magic of shells and shell collecting, but in an easy picturebook form.