Francine Galko

I really liked the book "Desert Animals" by Francine Galko for many reasons. First, I think it was a great way to introduce children to reading books with a table of contents. This helps the young reader find particular information they may be looking for. For example, the reader can look in the table of contents for different topics like "What is a desert?," "Desert Predators," "Living in the Plants," etc. for more detailed information on that topic on the page that is listed in the table of contents. Another thing I liked about this book was that each page was consistent. Every page is set up the same way with a photo at the top of the page, and a paragraph of text at the bottom of the page. This makes the reading and photos simple and appealing to the eye. A text feature I really liked about this book was that new vocabulary words that readers may not know of, are written in bold. While the text typically has the definition right after the word, there is also a glossary in the back of the book so readers can look at all of the definitions on one page. For example, the term "rain shadow" is in bold on the page followed by the sentence, "This means that the rains falls on the mountains instead of in the desert." You can also find this term in the back of the book (in the Glossary) where it says, "rain shadow: the side of the mountain that does not get much rain." This book also has an index which can be helpful if the reader needs to find what page a specific topic is located on. Another resource that this book provides is a list of additional books students can read if they enjoyed this particular book and want to read more about the topic. Some of the books included are "It Could Still Be a Desert" and "Cactus Desert." Overall this book provides many resources that are easily accessible and easy for young readers to use. The big idea of this book was to inform readers about the desert and the different animals that live in that particular place.… (más)