Tag: Juvenile Nonfic

Great Pets
by Marjorie L. Buckmaster

I\’m planning on starting up an old hobby- keeping tropical fish. It\’s been sixteen years or more since I had a fish tank, so while I wait for the setup to be complete and the tank cycled, I\’m reading up on all I can find and doing my research about what kinds of fish I\’ll get. This starts, of course, with lots of online reading. I\’ve read posts on fish forums until I feel like my eyes are going to fall out. So on our latest trip to the public library I brought home all the books I could find that seemed applicable- either to tropical fishkeeping in general, or to the specific species I\’m considering for my tank. The selection among the adult non-fiction books is pretty slim, so I brought home a stack from the juvenile section as well. If nothing else, these books remind me of the basics in a very solid way, and they usually have fantastic photographs to admire while I daydream about my own aquatic pets.

So, Freshwater Fishes was the first one I read. My older daughter immediately commented on the title: isn\’t the plural of fish just fish? The book explains: when you speak of two or more fish of the same species, you use the plural form fish. If you\’re talking about a group of different species together, you say fishes. I had no idea!

That\’s not the only thing this book taught me. I knew that goldfish have been kept domestically for centuries, and that the practice began in China, but I didn\’t know that people have been keeping fish for over 4,500 years, and that they were first kept as food stock. I also learned a bit about the presence of fish in mythology, some cultures even have fish deities- although the book only touched on this.

Mostly, this book was a reminder of the basics for me again. It explains the anatomy of fishes, their dietary and temperature requirements, how to set up a fishtank, how to clean it, how to choose healthy-looking fish and steps to introduce them into the aquarium. There are also some brief descriptions of popular species including: bettas, mollies, goldfish and koi, guppies, tetras, gouramis and algae eaters. The book tells young readers how to keep their fish healthy with regular water changes, strict feeding schedules and being careful to match fish temperaments when keeping a community tank, as well as being mindful of how large the fish will grow, so they have enough space.

I was a bit surprised that with all the details on regulating temperature and such, one important part was left out: dechlorinating or conditioning tap water before adding it to the tank. I shouldn\’t be too critical: the book is probably meant to give kids facts and get them excited about keeping an aquarium, expecting that most will have an adult helping. But still, it\’s such an important thing to omit! Another thing that alarmed me was that the book says you can keep goldfish in a bowl with only once-a-week water changes. That\’s bad advice. I started out with goldfish in a bowl myself as a kid, and I remember very clearly that I had to change the water once a day. Goldfish simply poop a lot. It wasn\’t until I put my goldfish in a filtered tank that I had ones survive any length of time- I think my oldest lived to be a few years. (I did have a certain pair of angelfish live for ten years, when later I had tropical fish).

Well, I liked the book for all that it reminded me of, and enjoyed the pictures. I\’m getting excited about my new venture!

Rating: 3/5      48 pages, 2008

by Sandra Markle

I browsed the J Non-fiction section of the library last week, in the nature section while my daughter was looking at books on outer space. Picked up a few about animals. This one tells about hyenas, particularly the brown hyena. In easy prose, it describes the daily life of one hyena as it searches for food and socializes with clan members, interspersing facts into the narrative. When the hyena bears a cub the story switches to follow the cub\’s growth and development until it is old enough to have its own offspring. All of which is illustrated with clear photographs- which is why I borrowed up the book, really. To do some sketching. I think this book is from the same series as the zebra one I read a few years back- a good solid series introducing kids to wildlife.

rating: 3/5 …….. 40 pages, 2005

These two books have a lot of similarities. In both, the illustrations are all either computer-generated textured beasts (with varying degrees of quality) or photos of dig sites, skeletons or fossils. The page spreads are all of a main picture with a larger block of text, and smaller pictures around it with descriptions in smaller text. I couldn\’t help noticing that a lot of the images were the same between the two books, even if shown from a slightly different angle.

Kingfisher Knowledge: Dinosaurs by Nigel Marven

This book describes dinosaurs by the regions in which they lived. First it gives an overview of dinosaur families in general, with a basic family tree showing how the different groups are related, discusses how the original single landmass Pangaea broke up over the centuries into different smaller continents, and offers different theories on why the dinosaurs went extinct. After that the book is organized by geographical areas. In the section for Eurasia it describes where dinosaur fossils were first discovered and how paleontologists uncover them, dinosaur predators found in the Gobi desert, feathered dinosaurs discovered in China, different kinds of pterosaurs (the flying ones), and ancient marine reptiles. The section for the Americas describes Dromaeosaurus which hunted in packs, armored plant-eating dinosaurs, giant sauropods and predatory dinosaurs found in Argentina, discoveries from Hell Creek, Montana and hadrosaurs found in Wyoming. The chapter on Africa and Australia features giant ancient crocodiles, huge sauropods from Madagascar called titanosaurs, different dinosaur tracks found in Australia and dinosaurs that lived in polar regions. I like how this book featured the work of paleontologists, on almost every page you read about how someone made a discovery. At the end of each chapter there is a summary and a text box that highlights different occupations having to do with dinosaurs, museums where dinosaur remains can be seen, and websites and books that give more information. The final pages of the book have a basic timeline showing which dinosaurs or animals were dominant during that period, a glossary and a good index.

Dangerous Dinosaurs Q&A by Carey Scott

This book is organized into broad sections: an overview of the dinosaur age, a part featuring dinosaur predators and scavengers, then plant-eaters and their defensive methods, the biggest dinosaurs, and how they probably died out. It\’s all presented as questions which are then answered, like: did dinosaurs ever get sick? which dinosaur has the biggest brain? did some dinosaurs migrate? I found it very easy to read through. Some of the things I learned from this book were that most meat-eating dinosaurs had only two or three fingers on a hand, whereas plant-eaters had five digits. That some dinosaurs could have had a lifespan of almost 200 years. That some dinosaurs had skin so thick it was practically bullet-proof. That many of the plants dinosaurs ate still exist today. It was all pretty interesting. This book also has a full index.

In both books they mention the ongoing debate of whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded or cold. Perhaps some were one, others the opposite. Maybe they were something in between. On other points the books disagree. One tells me that grass didn\’t exist until after the dinosaurs were all gone, the other says that scientists have discovered grass in a dinosaur\’s fossilized droppings. But that\’s what makes reading about all this so interesting- we\’re always learning something new!