2016 ANIMAL BEHAVIOR SOCIETY CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD FINALISTS STIMULATE YOUNG READERS
Stories and pictures illustrate science in an exciting way. This year the Animal Behavior Society recognized one winner and three finalists through our Outstanding Children’s Book Award program. These books are targeted to children in grades 3-5 (ages 8-11). Inspire a future scientist by giving one of these as a gift or by encouraging your school or public library to acquire these titles.
The Animal Behavior Society will soon be soliciting books for next year’s award. Interested publishers should contact the Book Award Sub-committee Chair, Michelle Solensky, E-mail: [email protected].
Outstanding Children’s Book Award Winner
The winner of the 2016 Outstanding Children’s Book Award is The Queen’s Shadow: A story about how animals see, written and illustrated by Cybèle Young, and published by Kids Can Press. The Queen’s Shadow is an enjoyable story about the many aspects of vision in different animals. The queen has played host to a diverse group of animals in the palace, but during a thunderstorm she has lost her shadow. She accuses them of stealing it and, one by one, they explain why their particular perceptual abilities eliminate them from her accusation. Well, the squid says all his arms were busy… On each double page, we learn about the perceptual world of a different animal. In the end the sea urchins reveal that she ‘left her show in the loo’ and they all go home, with us much the wiser. Children who reviewed this book liked the story, and they enjoyed learning about how animal see. |
Outstanding Children’s Book Award Finalists
Bite into Bloodsuckers, by Kari-Lynn Winters and Ishta Mercurio (Fitzhenry & Whiteside) describes the benefits and challenges of hematophagy, or using blood as a food source, and features vivid behavioral accounts of the usual suspects (ticks, leeches, mosquitos and vampire bats) and some less familiar bloodsuckers (torpedo snail, catfish, kissing bugs).
What’s the buzz? Keeping Bees in Flight, by Merrie-Ellen Wilcox (Orca Book Publishers) is a great book buzzing with information about the life of bees and ways humans can help them amidst recent massive die-offs.
The Octopus Scientists: Exploring the Mind of a Mollusk, by Sy Montgomery (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) puts the spotlight on an international team of scientists who study octopus behaviors near the South Pacific island of Moorea. As part of the Scientists in the Field Series, this book does an excellent job of describing both the joys and challenges of studying animal behavior in the field.