#blogbookaday: Animal Ark

Summary:  “A howling wolf, a stalking tiger, a playful panda, a dancing bird – pairing the stunning photography of National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore with the delicate poetry of Newbery award-winning author Kwame Alexander, this lush picture book celebrates the beauty, diversity, and fragility of the animal world.

Featuring more than 40 unique animal portraits, the pages invite kids to explore each creature’s markings, textures, and attributes in stunning detail, while calling on all of us to help protect each and every one.

Three picture-packed gatefolds inside showcase even more familiar and exotic species. These images are part of Sartore’s lifelong project to photograph every animal in the world, with special attention given to disappearing and endangered species.” (Taken from Goodreads)

Review: Anytime you get a book with photographs of animals by National Geographic photographers, you’re in for a visual treat. Plus, adding Kwame Alexander’s lyrical text to pair with the illustrations is an absolute delight. I love that this book can introduce kids to poetry in an accessible way that makes it interesting and exciting. Kids can learn adjectives as well with this book – even the opportunity to use a thesaurus to learn new words!

Personal Reaction: I love the beautiful close up photographs and the gatefold spreads have even more photographs to pour over. I also really enjoyed how the text in this book uses different size and shape to stress certain words or the shape of certain animals. April is National Poetry Month, making this a great title to share with the kids in your life.

Title: Animal Ark: Celebrating Our Wild World In Poetry and Pictures
Author: Kwame Alexander
Illustrator: Joel Sartore
Publisher: National Geographic Kids
Publication Date: February 14, 2017

This is a new idea I’m trying on my blog this year that was inspired by @donalynbooks and @heisereads – to provide a brief review of a picture book every day of 2018. You’ll get a brief summary of the story, a review of the content, illustrations and theme, my personal reaction to the book and all the pertinent publication information! Enjoy!