2 Great New, Quirky NF Must Have Titles! - #IMWAYR

My apologies to this community for being absent for so long. I've been reading like crazy to stay current for the children's literature course I am teaching, but I just forgot about this piece of sharing with all of you.

These two books made me realize it was time to share again! And I have to give a huge thanks to Andrea for being the one to recommend them to me!

My Awesome Summer by P. Mantis, written and illustrated by Paul Meisel is a chuckle a minute over a very bloodthirsty praying mantis who also happens to be the narrator of this text. Children will love the fact that P. Mantis eats whatever necessary when she is hungry, including brothers and sisters! What a fun text to share with students to hear their comments and sound effects regarding the gross items.

This book covers the life cycle of P. Mantis - including eating habits, defenses taken from predators, and skin shedding habits. The book is set up as a journal, so this cycle of life begins on May 17, and continues on until October 17.

As with all great nonfiction, the author has included notes on the end pages to enrich a reader's understanding of the praying mantis. He included three websites well worth the time to browse.

Ribbit, written and illustrated by Jorey Hurley, is another life cycle book. This time about a frog. In addition to the beautiful illustrations, the thing that makes this book so unique is that each 2-page layout has only one word on it to represent that life cycle. Each word is a verb. There are endless opportunities of how to share this with young children.

This book also has an author's note at the end with more detailed information about the frog and its life cycle, as well as how she and her brother used to catch tadpoles and watch them develop into frogs.

Both of these books would make amazing additions to a classroom library!!

Thanks so much to Jen of Teaching Mentor Texts and Kellee of Unleashing Readers for hosting this community of kidlit readers!!!