Published: 2007 by Arbordale
Ages: 3-7
Pages: 32
Spring is near, so I'm kicking this season off with books about nature. In my search for agents, publishers, and comp books, I've run across a few really good books that explain nature in really fun ways for kids.
First up, Little Blue Skink, tells the fictional story of an adorable little lizard with a big imagination. The character may be a product of Janet Halfmann's imagination, but the facts are all true. It's an excellent example of how to take true facts about nature and make them fun and easy for small children to enjoy.
Synopsis:
While Little Skink hunts yummy ants for her breakfast, she is suddenly attacked by a crow! But she has a trick to escape - she snaps off her tail and it keeps on waggling! Little Skink is happy to be alive but she misses her bright blue tail. Readers will enjoy pretending with her, trying on tail after tail. The first is too puffy-fluffy and another too stinky! Then one day Little Skink gets a big surprise . . . And she doesn’t have to dream of tails anymore.
P1: Title page
P2: Copyright
P3 Little Skink basked on a big yellow rock in the rays of the morning sun. Her chilly body soon turned snugly warm. She twitched her bright blue tail. The little lizard was ready to start her day.
P4: Leaping to the forest floor, she poked her pointy nose into a crack in a rotting log and looked for breakfast. Sniff, sniff! She smelled ants. She loved ants.
P5: Gobble, gobble, gobble. She swollowed down one ant after another.
P6: Her tummy was almost full when she felt a peck on her tail. It was a large, hungry crow!
P7: Little Skink was trapped. There was no way to run. But she had to a trick . . .
P8 - P9
Quicker than the crow could blink, Little Skink snapped off her bright blue tail!
Wiggle, waggle, waggle, went the tail, wriggling wildly through the fallen leaves.
The crow forgot all about Little Skink. It wanted that wiggling, waggling tail!
As the crow bounced this way and that, Little Skink slinked under a log. She was safe. Her wiggling, waggling tailed saved her.
This is an excellent way to show predation without being too scary. As a parent, I appreciate that the author doesn't shy away from predation yet still manages to show it without it being too scary. It's a fact of life that some animals eat other animals, this is the reason so many cool creatures have evolved such unique and diverse ways of escaping danger.
P10 - P11
The next morning, as Little Skink basked on her rock, she felt a little sad. She missed her bright blue tail, even though she was happy to be alive.
P12
As she lay basking and thinking, a cottontail rabbit hopped in front of her rock.
Hhhhmm, I wonder how I’d look with a tail like that? Little Skink thought.
P13
She pictured her new look. Very cute,” she thought to herself, “but too puffy-fluffy.”
P14 - P15
Next, she tried a squirrel’s tail: “It’s fun to flick and fluff,” she said, “but much too bushy.”
Day after day, Little Skink imagined herself wearing the tail of every animal she met.
P16 - P17
A deer’s tail: “Look! I can wave it like a little flag,” she said. “But it’s so short and stubby.”
P18 - P19
A skunk’s tail: “Peeeeuuw!” Said Little Skin. “”Stinky, stinky, stinky!”
P20 - P21
A porcupine’s tail: “Too sticky-prickly,” she said.
P22 - P23
An owl’s tail: “A lizard with feathers?” She exclaimed. “I don’t think so!”
P24 - P25
A turtle’s tail: “Too pointy,” said Little Skink.
This was a very imaginative second act to the the story, one that delighted my daughter and amused me. The writing was easy to make entertaining. The language was simple but not so dumbed down as to make it tedious. And the use of the different tails gave us a chance to talk about different animals we'd seen, and what they looked like.
P26
While all were fine tails, not one was quiet right for her.
P27
Then one day as she scampered onto her sunny rock, her shadow caught her eye. Her shadow had a tail!
P28-P29
She whipped around. Sure enough, her tail had grown back. “A skink needs a skink’s tail,” she said, and her tail-dreaming days were over.
End
And it's all tied together with a sweet message about body positivity. What a lovely story, and great illustrations along with it. At the end of the book are little games for older kids that explain how different animals in the story use their various tails.
BEDTIME BREAKDOWN
My little girl was very upset that I'd returned this book to the library. She's in the wiggling, squiggly, squirming phase of bedtime now, but this is one of the books that got her to calm down and listen.
She gasped at the crow, and delighted at the wiggly tail. She laughed at the skink wearing some of the other tails - possibly because her father is such a goofball while reading this one.
And that's what I really wanted to point out. This book was easy to read as a parent. Some of the other pictures books that my daughter likes are hard to get through as a parent reading a-loud. Either because the plot is chunky, or facts are being bent to make the story more child friendly. Or their are words or concepts too hard to explain.
Not here! This one was a breeze, even though it didn't rhyme. It was imaginative and educational at the same time. It was exciting without being too scary and it was fun to read out-loud. A story like this can be read in a goofy manner, or as a calming bedtime story read slow and soft.
If you like this book as much as I did, consider passing on the love to the author Janet Halfmann.
Also, the illustrator Laurie Klein who's done a great job on this and other picture books.
You can help my page out by purchasing through my Amazon Associates Link here "Little Skink's Tail"
Thanks for stopping by, I'm P. B. Yeary. I'll see you on the next page.
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