Springing to Life

With the official start of spring just behind us here in the northern hemisphere, my thoughts have turned to polliwogs, baby birds, and butterflies. Last year in honor of spring I put together a thematic book list on seeds and growing things. This time around I thought it would be fun to look at books for examining the early stages of life in some animals.

Let's start with some books on eggs and oviparous animals.

• Chickens Aren't the Only Ones by Ruth Heller - In this inviting book, readers learn about the variety of animals that lay eggs.

• Guess What is Growing Inside This Egg by Mia Posada - This interactive books includes a poem and visual clue before asking readers to guess what is inside the egg. Once they turn the page the answer is revealed along with a bit of information about the animal. This is another great book for looking at different animals that lay eggs.
  

• What Hatches? by Don Curry - This book describes different types of eggs and the animals that hatch from them, including birds, butterflies, frogs, alligators, and fish.

• An Egg is Quiet by Diana Hutts Aston - With gorgeous ink-and-watercolor illustrations, this beautiful book explores eggs in their many sizes, shapes, colors, and textures.
  

• Egg to Chick by Millicent E. Selsam - This Reading Rainbow selection explains in clear and simple language how an egg cell develops from fertilization through hatching.
  

• A Nest Full of Eggs by Priscilla Belz Jenkins - This book in the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series follows a robin family a robin family from early spring, through nest building, hatching, and fledging.

• Where Do Chicks Come From? by Amy Sklansky - This book in the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series describes the development of a baby chick from fertilization until it hatches. This is a simple, yet scientific introduction to the subject.

• Bird Eggs by Helen Frost - This book identifies and describes different bird eggs by their size, color, and pattern.

• The Emperor's Egg by Martin Jenkins - This book highlights the role of male penguins in incubating the eggs of the young in the harsh Antarctic winter.

• The Emperor Lays an Egg by Brenda Guiberson - This book begins with the laying of an egg and goes on to describe the care given to the baby penguin from the time it hatches until it is on its own.

• Penguin Chick by Betty Tatham - This book in the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out-Science series follows the growth of one penguin chick from egg to adulthood.

• A Platypus, Probably by Sneed Collard - In discussing egg-laying animals, one can't leave out the platypus. This book clearly describes the physical characteristics and behaviors of this unusual animal.

• How Living Things Grow - This series, written by Anita Ganeri for the Heinemann First Library, includes two egg books that beautifully convey the life cycles of spiders and chickens.
  
• From Egg to Chicken
  
• From Egg to Spider
  

• You Can't Lay an Egg if You're an Elephant by Fred Ehrlich - This book looks at the difference between animals that lay eggs and animals that give birth to live young. The first two chapters are devoted to birds.
  

If it's fiction you're looking for, stop by Jama Rattigan's Alphabet Soup and check out her post featuring some of her favorite "eggy picture books."

Here are a few books that look at the life cycles of birds, frogs and butterflies.

• From Tadpole to Frog by Wendy Pfeffer - This book in the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series introduces readers to the life cycle of frogs.

• From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman - This book in the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series introduces readers to the life cycle of the butterfly.

• Where Butterflies Grow by Joanne Ryder - This book follows the growth of a butterfly from its beginning as an egg. Also included are directions for attracting butterflies to your garden.

• Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert - This beautifully illustrated book introduces readers to the wonder of butterfly metamorphosis.

• Robins and Their Chicks by Linda Tagliaferro - In text and photos this book describe the lives of baby robins from birth to early maturity.

• Two Blue Jays by Anne Rockwell - In this book a child describes the mating ritual, nest building, and feeding and brooding habits of a pair of blue jays. All of this is observed by a group of children observing the animals outside their classroom window.
  

• Hummingbird Nest: A Journal of Poems by Kristine O'Connell George - What happens when a poet awakens one morning to find a hummingbird nest in a tree on her patio? She writes about everything she sees. This wonderful volume of poems follows the hummingbirds from egg stage through leaving the nest. Included is an author's note and information about hummingbirds.
  

If you want more books about frogs and and toads, try this thematic list. You can also find a great list of frog poetry at Wild Rose Reader in a post entitled Leaping Lizards! It's the year of the Frog.

Finally, here are a few poems that support this topic.

• Eggs by Steven Schnur in Spring: An Alphabet Acrostic.
  Egrets, ducks, and
  Geese nest in the marsh
  Grass, waiting for their
  Shells to hatch.
  
  You will also find poems for the words frog, nest, and young here.
  


• The Mother (p. 32) by Marilyn Singer in The Company of Crows: A Book of Poems.
  Three messy nests my last year's brood
  are building:
  one lopsided
  one slopsided
  the third half washed away
  by last night's rain.
  I help them by not helping.
  
  Without practice
  how would they ever learn
  the roundness
  the tightness
  the rightness
  of a nest?
  
  There are several other poems in this book that examine mother and father birds and their young.


• Spring Splashdown by Joyce Sidman in Song of the Water Boatman & Other Pond Poems. The double page-spread includes a poem describing newly hatched wood ducks and some information about them.
  
  Peck, peck,
  crackle, crackle.
  Fluff, fluff,
  wiggle, wiggle.
  Snooze, snooze . . .
  Mommy calling!
  

Over at Wild Rose Reader, Elaine put together a terrific list of of books to welcome spring with poetry. You're sure to find some other useful titles there.

I'm sure there are many more terrific books that touch on these subjects. These are the ones that speak to me of spring and new life. If you have a book to recommend, please let me know and I'll add it to the list.