About Reptiles: A Guide for Children Book

With the help of the beautifully detailed illustrations from noted wildlife illustrator John Sill, "About Reptiles" explains the basic characteristics that all reptiles share, while offering a look at the animals that fall into this diverse category. An afterword provides further detail on the animals portrayed to inspire young readers to learn more.

In this easy-to-read introduction to reptiles for children, elementary school teacher and author Cathryn Sill explains what reptiles are, how they live, and what they do. Author Cathryn Sill and illustrator John Sill have also collaborated on the critically acclaimed titles About Birds and About Mammals.

Children's Literature

This picture book provides a basic introduction to reptiles that would appeal to a preschooler but includes an afterward suitable for an early grade-school student. Full-page, beautifully detailed, colored illustrations of reptiles in their habitats are presented as 15 numbered plates, which accompany the simple running text. Facts about reptiles' skin or bony plate coverings, their short legs or leglessness, their mobility through crawling or swimming, their need for warmth, their food requirements, or their method of reproduction are simply presented. The pictures of snakes, turtles, lizards, and alligators are specifically identified and then discussed further in the afterward. There we find interesting facts, such as the slender glass lizard is so-called because its tail, when grabbed, will shatter into pieces, or the loggerhead turtle can grow up to seven feet and weigh up to 1,000 pounds. Other important points are that many reptiles eat rodents and insects harmful to man but that man's encroachment upon the turtle is endangering some of their species. Since this is a guide that might be read to a child or by a child, there should be a fuller description of the dangers of some of these reptiles, especially the snakes.