Lerner Publications
12-Book Series, Library Bound
ISBN-10: 0-8225-7494-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-8225-7494-1
64 pages each
Bibliography • Full-Color Photographs • Further Reading • Glossary • Index • Maps • Table of Contents • Websites
Grades 3-5
Order Now!
Powell’s
Amazon
What Are They About?
An interactive, nonlinear nonfiction series about food webs in different habitats. After reading about an animal, you choose what it eats. Your choices weave a route through the habitat’s food web. But pay attention–you may end up where you never expected to be. And watch out for those dead ends!
Why I Wrote This Story
Although I’ve never been a lion on the African savanna or a fiddler crab in a mangrove forest, there’s a lot of me in this book. Or maybe a lot of my kids. This series grew out of their never-ending questions:
“What do anacondas eat, Mom?”
“Capybaras? Deer? Peccaries? What do they eat?”
“Plants? What kinds of plants? What do they look like?”
And so on. As we say in the dedication, we hope these books answer some of their questions.
What People Are Saying
School Library Journal: Gr 3–6—Numerous photos of plants and animals in their habitats appear on these pages, accompanied by an explanation of the basic elements of a food chain and definitions of terms such as predators, consumers, producers, and decomposers. What sets these books apart from others on the topic is their “choose your own adventure” style. After transporting readers to an unfamiliar habitat (”It’s July, and the Arctic tundra is in full bloom”), the authors instruct them to choose one of the region’s carnivores and explore its food chain. Six animals (grizzly bear, snowy owl, Arctic wolf, polar bear, wolverine, and peregrine falcon) are presented in Tundra and four (dingo, saltwater crocodile, wedge-tailed eagle, Gould’s monitor) in Outback. Choices result in returning to some pages more than once and sometimes discovering a “dead end”—a critically endangered or extinct animal. Then it’s back to the beginning to select a new carnivore. The interconnections created by the choices effectively illustrate the complexity of food webs while providing information about the plants and animals that form the components. Lively, engaging writing helps sustain interest. The back matter will assist report writers, and the possibility of choosing among options to create numerous “plots” will entice a broad audience to learn about life in unfamiliar places.—Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato
National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Recommends – February 2009
An important science topic for students to understand is the energy relationship among organisms in a specific environment. Studying food chains provides important information about key biological concepts and helps students see the importance of efforts to protect a specific species from being destroyed by human activities. This book is part of a series called Follow That Food Chain, which allows students to explore this interconnection as part of an interesting game.
A Desert Food Chain looks at the plants and animals in the Sonoran Desert of North America. As the authors point out: “The plants and animals in a food chain depend on one another. Sometimes there is a break in the chain, such as one type of animal dying out. This loss ripples through the rest of the habitat.”
The book is divided into four sections and includes a glossary, lists of further reading and websites, a bibliography, and an index. Like others in the series, it’s filled with interesting photographs and illustrations. For students who are accustomed to reading websites with many links, this book provides similar graphic elements—short notes that direct students to go to another page to follow the connection. So, instead of just reading the book, students will move back and forth through the book following the links. There are also numerous sidebars presenting interesting information. For example, scorpions glow in the dark because of a specific secretion on their exoskeleton.
This bright colorful book will attract young readers. The format will hold the reader’s interest as he or she moves through the book following the notes. This is a great way to teach about the importance of food chains. — Donald Logsdon, Jr.
Booklist - Spotlight on New Books for Youth on the Environment – February 15, 2009 - It’s no coincidence that the food “chain” bordering most of the interior spreads resembles a game board. In fact, each volume in the Follow That Food Chain series is organized like a nonfiction choose-your-own adventure game. An introduction defines the temperature forest and then lays out the rules: there are various roles within any environment, and each of them—from primary consumer to decomposer—is represented by a colored shape. Logically, the reader begins at the top of the food chain: a tertiary consumer. After choosing, say, the great horned owl, the reader skips to the appropriate page, where present-tense prose details a day’s worth of adventures. Meanwhile, a breakout section explains the sounds of an owl (a “hoo-hoo” means something quite different from a “whaaa whaaaaaa-a-a-aarrk”), before giving you a choice of what the owl eats. Choosing muskrat takes you to its page. The design is cartoonish and colorful with plenty of photos. Those who try reading it straight through will be thoroughly lost, but most will enjoy this unique interactive method. — Daniel Kraus
Read an interview about Follow That Food Chain in Volume One, our local arts/entertainment magazine. Click on the right “Related in Print” link to see some pages.
