Wild animal picture books are a wonderful way to engage kids in reading and pique their interest in the environment. All kids find animal books fascinating whether the book is full of facts and real photographs or creative illustrations depicting animals acting out human scenarios. Animal books are available for all age ranges and can be located in variety of stores, libraries and online.
Great Wild Animal Books
Children's picture books can depict domestic, farm and wild animals in various formats and situations. The books showing wild animals can be particularly beneficial for kids because they introduce new worlds and facts about animals that are not seen every day. This can also promote an interest that guides the young reader to explore other books independently.
Preschool Books
Young readers are drawn easily into books with vibrant pictures and easy to follow text. Sometimes picture books even allow the child to create their own imaginative narrative.
- Tender Moments in the Wild: Animals and their Babies by Stephanie Maze:Baby animals and their affectionate parents are depicted in clear professional pictures with easy to read descriptive text.
- My First Picture Book of Wild Animals by Linda Jennings and Lesley Smith: The illustrations in this book are very engaging for new readers and its length is perfect to keep attention without overwhelming preschoolers.
- Little Lion Finger Puppet Book by Chronicle Books: This book depicts a day where little lion has a slew of visitors and provides stimulation in the form of soft stuffed animal inserts.
Five to Eight Years Old
Kids just starting school need to become familiar with the process of reading for continuing success in later grades. Wild animal picture books are wonderful for reports and presentations because they provide pictures that can give information even if the child is not a strong reader.
- Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. and illustrated by Eric Carle: The illustrations for this story were drawn by the same creative genius who created the popular The Very Hungry Caterpillar book. The story encourages active participation with a rhyming question/answer format and the colorful animal pictures are simply delightful.
- Tough Beginnings: How Baby Animals Survive by Margaret Singer: This illustrated storybook chronicles the first moments of a variety of animals and is quite informative while still entertaining the reader
- Where in the Wild?: Camouflaged creatures concealed…and revealed by David M.Schwartz and Yael Schy with the photos by Dwight Kuhn: This is a truly stunning flap book which shows children how animals hide themselves in nature.
Eight to Eleven Years Old
This age range can access many books about animals that start to teach lessons in behavior, describe unique ecosystems, and promote the importance of animal preservation.
- One Less Fish by Kim Michelle Toft and Allan Sheather: Endangered species are introduced to children in school during this age range and One Less Fish counts down twelve species losing their numbers due to different environmental issues.
- Gorillas by Patricia Miller-Schroeder: This book is a comprehensive introduction of gorillas and includes professional quality photos and many conservation related facts. Gorillas is perfect for kids writing reports on this fascinating mammal.
- Animal Architects by John Nicholson: The various incredible homes of wild animals are shown in detail through accurately rendered illustrations and easy to follow text.
Twelve and Older
Picture books for older children are often more educational using illustrations to show facts and introduce kids to wild habitats rather than just entertain.
- Relentless Enemies by Dereck and Beverly Joubert: Over 100 photos and insightful exciting text describe two years spent by the authors living with a pride of lions in Duba.This book will delight any kid or adult who loves big cats and adventure.
- Frans Lanting's Jungles: The jungle represents a frontier that most people will never see or visit. This detailed book provides over 140 amazing pictures and covers topics such as evolution, camouflage,order, and form of the animals who live in this habitat.
Links for Wild Animal Picture Books
Here are great sites for quality animal books:
- National Geographic- The books featured here are gorgeous and the photographs are from world class photographers.
- Amazon- This is an incredibly large database of wonderful children's books.
