How to Be an Elephant

As Picture Book Month wraps up, I wanted to share another guest blog post by Leah and Izzy. If you have not seen or read this new book by Katherine Roy, you really need to.  It very well could medal Sibert and Caldecott.  It's gorgeous.  But enough from me, here is their review:

Have you ever wondered what elephants need to know to survive in the wild? In How To Be An Elephant: Growing up to be an Elephant in the African Wild by Katherine Roy, you learn everything you ever wanted to know about elephants from what an elephant needs to learn, to facts about the elephant family to how much space an elephant needs to live.

The illustrations are SPECTACULAR and detailed. Our favorite is the last page. All the illustrations are the best we have seen in our life. They all look realistic.  

“Every time I see an elephant on this page and all the pages, I just think about how elephants are my favorite animal.  I always liked them a lot but it kind of taught me more than I already knew.”-Leah

Reading the book makes learning about elephants fun. It teaches everyone about elephants. There are so many facts in the book that we didn’t know about elephants! Did you know herds only have female elephants (besides the young male elephants)? Also, did you know that young elephants use their trunks to smell things to figure out what they are because they don't have very good vision?

Want to learn more about elephants? If so then How To Be An Elephant is the perfect book for you!

Leah and Izzy chose to read this book to Mrs. Golden's first graders in honor of Picture Book Month. Here are a few extra facts they shared:

1. Elephants need food to live. They eat many things. Their six sets of of molars help them chew food.
2. The sound an elephant makes goes really far--2 - 6 miles!
3. Elephants keep at the right temperature all the time. They use their ears to cool off and heat up.
4. Elephants help change the land. They grow plants, strip bark and dig places for water.