Time to Eat

Jenkins, Steve and Robin Page. Time to Eat. Illustrated by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. Houghton Mifflin, 2011. 24 pages. $12.99. ISBN 9780547250328.

Summary:

Are you craving facts about animals and their eating habits, like a baby pelican craves a meal of regurgitated fish from its mother’s throat? If so, this is the book for you! Readers are introduced to the unusual, creative, and (sometimes) gross eating habits of seventeen animals, from a tiny shrew to a giant blue whale. Jenkins’ signature illustrative style in paper collage (with lots of white space on the page) accompanies a brief paragraph of text on each animal. The last three pages of back matter include more details on each animal.

Curriculum Connections:

This could be an excellent book to introduce an animal research project with first or second graders. The group could then create a Venn diagram to show which animals were plant eaters, meat eaters, and omnivores, or create a list to divide the animals into classes of mammals, birds, amphibians, etc.

Personal Reflections:

With so many young fans of nonfiction, animals, and (sometimes) gross facts, this book is sure to be a hit with readers. I had no idea that the baby blue whale can gain up to 200 lbs. in a 24 hour period on its rich diet of mother’s milk!

Awards:

Age/Interest Range:

PreK-10

Genre/Themes:

Nonfiction, Animals, Science, Biology

Read-Alikes:

Jenkins and Page have collaborated on two other titles in this trilogy, Time for a Bath and Time to Sleep, which have a similar illustrative and factual style.