Reviews for Hungry Animals: My First Look at a Food Chain

The average rating for Hungry Animals: My First Look at a Food Chain based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-06-03 00:00:00 Paul Hasselberg Horn Book (Spring 2009) Using the format of a television cooking show, this book explains how snow is formed. Hosts/sous-chefs Snow White and Jack Frost help snowman Chef Kelvin "cook up a batch of snow." Accompanied by digital illustrations in cool, translucent hues, the text, featuring plenty of humorous asides, also includes detailed scientific information about snow. Kirkus Reviews (September 15, 2008) Prima-donna snowman Chef Kelvin provides the chief ingredients in this playful look at snowflake-formation. As host Snow White narrates, Chef Kelvin warms himself, evaporates and forms into a cloud, reserving some water vapor for the big event, deposition, or the transformation of water vapor directly into ice, which makes snow crystals. As the studio audience oohs and aahs, playful visuals mix the cooking-show motif with science to great effect--one highlight is the image of Chef Kelvin in cloud form as a particle accelerator for the deposition process. Complete with a commercial break and outtakes, this show's as packed with information as a good hard snowball. (Informational picture book. 7-10) Library Media Connection (March/April 2009) For anyone who has ever wondered just how snow is made, this frothy new book has all of the answers and some extra chilling fun stuff to boot! Presented in a unique and humorous TV cooking show format, readers will not only get a taste of broadcasting through technical terms, but also learn about the phases of the water cycle. Snow White and her co-hosts, Chef Kelvin and Jack Frost, take the reader straight to the North Pole where they ?cook up? a batch of snow. The whimsical and colorful illustrations catch the reader?s eye. The author also uses pictorial symbols and algorithms to aid in the reader?s understanding. Although vocabulary may be more readable for upper level elementary students, teachers in primary grades will find this a fun and interesting addition. Included is information about ?stars? in snow history, like William ?Snowflake? Bentley and Ukichiro Nakaya, as well as distinguishing flakes from crystals. Readers will even have a chance to create their very own frozen concoctions with a fun ?Polar Pops? recipe. This entertaining and attention- grabbing title would be a ?cool? addition to any elementary library. Recommended. Suzanne Buza-Snead, Librarian, Nancy Strickland Intermediate, Carrollton/Farmers Branch ISD, Farmers Branch, Texas School Library Journal (January 1, 2009) K-Gr 3-Fisher takes techniques from video and digital media to explain a scientific concept. The book opens on the stage of a cooking show whose hosts, Snow White, Jack Frost, and a snowman named Chef Kelvin, use the cooking metaphor to teach the audience how snow is made. Snippets of text appear, recipe fashion, on each spread and deconstruct the processes of evaporation, deposition, application of heat (or cold), and precipitation. The visually dynamic, digitally created art features lettering that helps tell the story. For example, the word "water" spills from a measuring cup and looks, well, wet. Fisher includes collage, dialogue asides, arrows, onomatopoeic descriptors, and fact boxes, yet maintains clarity, cohesion, and purpose. Snow Show will be a hit with teachers who need to get a point across and with youngsters who are used to the visual stimulus of a screen.-Lisa Egly Lehmuller, St. Patrick's Catholic School, Charlotte, NC Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

Review # 2 was written on 2006-06-11 00:00:00 Neil Perron The Snow Show by Carolyn Fisher gives scientific information about how snow and snow crystals are formed at the North Pole in a TV cooking show format. The colorful, detailed illustrations were created digitally. My favorite images include ingredients, directions, vapor high, zero degrees, ice, snow crystal shapes, crystals fall, and roll & stack. There is some very good information explained well within this book, which appears from the cover to be a simple picturebook. While the presentation style will please some, others may feel that it is very busy, or choppy. Some will also not appreciate some potty humor, especially this sentence: "Water vapor is an invisible gas, like a fart is an invisible gas." Others may love that explanation. To me, this would make a wonderful video presentation on this topic. At the end of the book is a bibliography, polar pop recipe, more snow crystals and a list of phase changes. The author's website contains more information and a free activity kit. An interested student could learn much from this book, which belongs in elementary school libraries. 3.25 stars For ages 5 to 8, snow, science, evaporation, condensation, humor, precipitation, and fans of Carolyn Fisher.