Deagostini UK Limited

I really liked this book and think it provides many facts in an interesting way for children. The purpose is to inform young children about many types of seals, which will hopefully spark their interest in science and other species of animals. It is an ebook that is very simple without much color or any artistic illustrations. However, the book includes several pictures that are relevant to the content on each page. For example, on a page that talks about seals in captivity, there is a picture of a seal at a zoo. The book has several vocabulary words, such as “carnivora”, “psocids”, and “vibrissae”, that students will not be able to comprehend. This can be distracting to the reader and take away from their understanding of the context. There is a glossary at the end of the book that consists of all of the difficult academic vocabulary in the story, which children should be encouraged to refer to as they read. While the book is well organized and the actual story consists of accurate facts, the seal classification chart at the end of the book is from Wikipedia, which is not a reliable source. I questioned the reliability of the entire text after seeing the Wikipedia reference, but did fact check some things the book mentioned such as the average weight of an elephant seal and all of the facts were proven accurate by several sources. This means that the information is all true and readers will not be misled by false statements. This book can be beneficial for students who are beginning to write basic research papers and nonfiction book reports. It is an interesting topic with cute pictures on every page, so I would recommend it to students who are fascinated by animals and need to learn how to enjoy nonfiction books as well as fiction.… (más)