25+ Great Science and Nature Books for Five to Eight Year olds

In the last two years, I've written about many science and nature books for five to eight year olds. The following list contains links to the Chicken Spaghetti reviews, some of which are lengthy and some only a sentence or two. (The info in parentheses indicates when I wrote about the book.) All of the books on the list are kid-tested and kid-approved by my resident junior scientist, now a third-grader.

Beetle, by Rebecca Stefoff (June 2006)

Bird books for children (June 2007)

Bird Songs: 250 North American Birds in Song (February 2007). For older kid readers and adults.

Books from various National Science Teachers Association lists. Comments on Compost! Growing Gardens from Your Garbage; Lightning; Tornadoes; All About Deer; From Caterpillar to Butterfly; Honeybees; Horseshoe Crabs and Shorebirds. (May 2005)

Brief reviews of An Egg Is Quiet; Volcanoes and Earthquakes; The Magic Schoolbus: Inside a Hurricane; If a Dolphin Were a Fish; Compost Critters; Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow (December 2006)

Busy, Busy Squirrels (May 2007)

Caves: Mysteries Beneath Our Feet, by David L. Harrison (September 2005)

Frog Heaven: Ecology of a Vernal Pool (July 2007)

Danger: Earthquakes, by Seymour Simon (October 2006)

A Gathering of Garter Snakes, by Bianca Lavies (August 2005)

Hello Fish! Visiting the Coral Reef, by Sylvia Earle. (June 2005)

It's an Amadillo! by Bianca Lavies (June 2006)

Little Lost Bat, by Sandra Markle (November 2006)

Maple-sugaring books: Ininatig's Gift: Traditional Native Sugarmaking, and The Big Tree (March 2007)

A miscellaneous roundup, including Big Bugs; Dive! A Book of Deep Sea Creatures; and Shadows of Night: The Hidden World of the Little Brown Bat (April 2006)

One-line reviews of The Seaside Switch; Shells! Shells! Shells!; One Small Place by the Sea; Once Around the Sun (July 2007)

Our Seasons, by Grace Lin (November 2006)

Rat Attacks (March 2007)

Recycling and garbage. Brief reviews of a few books. (September 2005)

Sea Critters, by Sylvia Earle (August 2006)

Sea Stars: Saltwater Poems (December 2006

DK's Seashore (March 2007)

Seeds, by Ken Robbins. Brief review. (August 2005)

Snowflake Bentley, by Jacqueline B. Martin (January 2006)

Song of the Water Boatman & Other Pond Poems (June 2007)

Starting Life: Ladybug (March 2006)

Super Storms, by Seymour Simon (October 2006)

Tentacles!: Tales of the Giant Squid (August 2006)

Terrible Storm (March 2007)

Volcano books (April 2007)

Why Do Snakes Hiss? (September 2006)

The Works: Anatomy of a City. For adults; good for read-alouds to children interested in science and engineering, too. (January 2007) 

Comments

[Vivian]

My kids are going to love these books. Thanks for putting this list together.

[Susan]

You're welcome, Vivian. Now I have to find some new titles!

[Chris Barton]

Wowza -- thanks, Junior Scientist (and the Junior Scientist Mother)! How can I pass up a title like "Rat Attacks"?

[Susan]

Chris, Jr. thought Rat Attacks was the bomb, and kept the classroom's copy for months. I can't actually swear that it's great, but he can. Just the other day he was mentioning some grotesque fact from there. There are more Attacks, if one is so inclined.

[Charlotte]

Thanks for contributing this post to the September Carnival of Children's Literature, now up and running at my blog!