Non-Fiction Can Be Nice

This afternoon I was in Pottery Barn Kids looking for a coffee table that I saw in The Land of Nod catalog.  I think it might be perfect for my soon to be library.  Unfortunately, Pottery Barn doesn't carry Land of Nod merchandise.  So I didn't find my coffee table, but I did find an adorable series of non-fiction books for little kids.  They’re published by a company called Barron’s, and each one in the series is a board book shaped like an animal.  They had Little Polar Bear and Little Penguin at Pottery Barn, but there are at least ten other animals available.  The text is minimal, but the information was interesting and engaging. 

Non-fiction often gets overlooked when we think about children’s literature.  Kids like stories, but they also love non-fiction; and non-fiction builds vocabulary and background knowledge that kids will need in school.  Think about it, most of the reading we do as adults is non-fiction.  We read newspapers, magazines, textbooks, professional books, blogs, gossip columns, restaurant reviews, but elementary aged children read mostly fiction.  How are we preparing them for the real world, if they aren't getting a balanced diet of fiction and non-fiction?  As a teacher, this was a hard transition for me, because I don’t really like non-fiction.  My students, however, loved it. 

Good non-fiction has photographs, color and short bursts of readable text.  This week I’ll focus on my favorite non-fiction science books.  DK Books publishes non-fiction on every topic at every level, from My First Words, a board book with pictures and labels, to Ocean, an exhaustive look at the ocean written at a middle school level.  National Geographic Kids is another series of easy reads with great pictures.  I use Penguins and Volcanoes almost every year, because kids are fascinated by animals and disasters.  Another book my students love is called Actual Size.  It’s a picture book and the illustrations show the actual size of various animal parts, like a gorilla’s hand that takes up the whole first page.  My other favorite science series is called One Small Square.  They describe the microcosm of what you would find in a square foot of the woods, a desert, your backyard, etc.

 

Science magazines are another great option for kids.  National Geographic Kids, Zoobooks and Kids Discover are some of the popular ones at my school, and subscriptions make good Christmas presents. Even if you’re a fairy tale person like me, it’s worth it to give non-fiction a chance. 

 

Great Science Non-Fiction

Little Polar Bear by L. Rigo

Little Penguin by Michael Anthony Steele

My First Words by Dawn Sirett

Ocean by Miranda MacQuitty

National Geographic Kids: Penguins by Anne Schreiber

National Geographic Kids: Volcanoes by Anne Schreiber

National Geographic Kids Almanac 2013

Actual Size by Steve Jenkins

One Small Square: Woods by Donald Silver

One Small Square: Backyard by Donald Silver

One Small Square: Tropical Rain Forest by Donald Silver

The Magic School Bus inside the Human Body by Joanna Cole

The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor by Joanna Cole