What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?

Title: What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?

Author/Illustrator: Jenkins, Steve and Page, Robin

Publisher and Date: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003

Genre: Picture Book, Informational

Age Range: K-6th

2004 Caldecott Honor Book

Summary:

This book introduces the reader to a wide variety of animals and animal parts and their functions. On page one the purpose of the book is introduced; the reader is supposed to read the question and try to guess the answer before turning the page. On some pages a question is asked such as "What do you do with a nose like this? and partial illustrations of animals are shown. On the next page the entire illustration is visible along with all the animal names and the functions of their noses. The book follows this pattern for all six questions dealing with ear, eyes, mouths, noses, feet, and tails.

Response:

I thought this was a really neat book. It is completely different from all the other picture books I have been reading. I thought it was great that this book actually taught concepts in an interesting way. Learning about animals while reading a picture book is much more fun than just reading about them in a textbook. The format and premise of the book are also great. The book simply asks a question and then answers it on the following page; it allows the reader to have fun while reading the book by introducing the guessing game concept at the beginning of the book. Any kid would jump at the chance to play a game while reading.

The illustrations for this book are beautiful! I could not believe that they are all made out of cut paper. It simply amazes me! I am not a very artistic person and it is hard for me to even draw a simple picture. So when I see artwork like this it makes me appreciate the time and the effort he put into the picture so much more because I know how difficult creating art can be. The pictures and the text flow really well together; I felt like both complemented each other and that neither one overpowered the other. The pictures are beautiful but what good are they without the words, and the words are neccesary to teach but the pictures are what really make the concepts memorable to a child. I also like the way that the text seemed to fit in with the picture. For example the text about the skunk seems to be spraying out from beneath his tail and the text about the blue footed booby seemed to jump around like he was performing a dance.

Teaching Ideas:

What can you not do with this book? Simply reading it is a teaching method; there is also a great information section in the back to explore after you finish the story that tells more information about all the animals in the book. Older students could also take other animals that they are learning about in class and use the format in the book to create their own mini story. The teacher could give them a list of animals and their body parts to focus on and the students could work in groups to write and illustrate their own books to share with the class.