Marie Vendittelli

This book contains 14 colors: white, blue, gray, yellow, brown, black, orange, pink, red, turquoise, green, violet, silver, and gold. I like that it goes beyond the primary colors in most introductory books. Each of these colors is represented by an animal in some habitat, which means an easy extension would be to talk about the habitats and the animals in depth. You could even have the child guess the animal in some of the close-up photos. Overall, great book.

Recommended age: 1-3 years

Writing style: Simple and easy to understand, though many words are not decodable. A parent will need to read the book. The text follows this format: "Gray Like this elephant in the savannah."

Lexile range (unofficial): 410L - 600L
Decoding difficulty: 5/5
Vocabulary difficulty: 4/5
Sentences difficulty: 3/5
Patterns difficulty: 4/5

Illustration style: Large, up-close photos of animals. Some of the pictures are zoomed in so much that only a part of the animal is visible, which makes it harder to recognize.

Reality-based: Yes. The book contains real photographs of animals and a one-sentence summary of where they live.… (más)