Thoughts

I was drawn to this book by the puppy on the cover and the fact that the author, Holly Rosensweig, is a speech-language pathologist. With an infant at home who is rapidly increasing his babbling and a dog that he is obsessed with, it was a perfect fit. I appreciated the parent’s guide at the beginning, which explains how to expand upon the text in the book by describing images, expanding the words into phrases, or acting out the pages. This isn’t something I do naturally with children’s books, so knowing that it’s built into the book’s concept is so helpful. For instance, there are subtle details in the images, like an apple tree, that allows me to have a conversation about apples. The phrases are common, like no, more, and all done, that I could even add simple sign language that we’re teaching to it. Overall, a cute book for infants learning to talk.

Writing Style

Writing style: Simple words and phrases, like “Ready, set, go!” The words are often repeated three times, and some sound words are also included, like a car going “beep beep.”

Lexile Information

• Lexile range (unofficial): 10L – 200L
• Decoding difficulty: 1/5
• Vocabulary difficulty: 2/5
• Sentences difficulty: 1/5
• Patterns difficulty: 4/5

Illustration Style

The illustrations by Emily Rutherford are simple in a good way. There are only a few elements per page to help a child focus on what is included. The color palette is on the pastel side, which is, again, not overwhelming.

Reality-based

Yes, the book describes a day in the life of a puppy. The puppy eats, plays fetch, walks, gets dirty, bathes, and goes to bed.

Thank you, NetGalley and Ninewise Publishing, for this title. All opinions are my own.

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Thoughts

From Egg to Robin follows the progression of eggs hatching, baby robins growing up, becoming independent, and then becoming parents on their own. At the end of the book are some definitions of new words, resources to learn more about birds, and an index of where words are located in the book. These additional features make the book a good example of a reference book while remaining age appropriate.

This book would be a good addition to a unit study on robins. It could be used to introduce the changes with spring. For older children, it could be used as an example for a project where the children make their own reference books.

We repeatedly read the book and matched the photographs to what we saw in the robin’s nest outside, which was a lot of fun. I look forward to getting the other nonfiction books in this series.

Writing Style

Large font sentences on a white background. Key phrases are repeated in the book, such as “keep them warm” and “baby birds”. There is repetition in the word choice as well to help reinforce concepts, such as nest, feathers, eggs, and food.

Lexile Information

• Lexile score: 180L
• Decoding difficulty: 3/5
• Vocabulary difficulty: 4/5
• Sentences difficulty: 2/5
• Patterns difficulty: 3/5

Illustration Style

Photographs of robins and their babies related to the text on the page.

Reality-based

Yes, this is a nonfiction book about the life of robins.

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