Big Blue Whale written by Nicola Davies and illustrated by Nick Maland

Another fabulous children’s picture book! It definitely falls into the category as informational. I absolutely loved this book. I learned so much and in such a fun way.

            It is important to note that once again the illustration continues from the front cover to the back of the cover. The story also begins before the publishing information. The illustrations did not only have their own unique pencil sketch styles with color but also were very scientific looking at times. It used several closes ups so one might better understand what the text discusses. It also adds to the text creating at moments its own side story.

The text is very informative and not belittling. It helps make the reader the expert assuming they understand and that they can understand the vocabulary for themselves. Therefore its  not condescending what so ever. However, one of the most unique things about the text is its formatting. The text appears in paragraph form at times as well as wrapping itself around the illustrations and the characters. This makes reading the facts fun and interesting. I definitely learned a lot from this book. One cool fact is that even though it is a picture book it has an index at the end.

I would use this book in my classroom. I could use the activity we used in class with the three different responses. I could also use it in a text set…which I plan on doing. I could use this book for science projects and research. I recommend this book to teacher.

Published: 1997