Mike tries to take the kids to the library every Saturday morning, and they always bring home a diverse collection of books. A recent favorite was Bats! Strange and Wonderful, written by Laurence Pringle and illustrated by Meryl Henderson.
Prior to reading this book, my only exposure to bats was finding a dead one in our yard as a child (which led to a call to animal control and strict instructions not to touch it for fear of rabies) and a problem my family had with bats living in their house when they were living in Nicaragua (I was in equally sunny but much less humid California, going on romantic, bat-free walks with Mike. And going to school and working, of course). I’d seen bats at the zoo, and knew they had excellent hearing that they used to find their way around (echolocation).
Bats are way cooler than that, but you have to read this book to understand why. It’s the best children’s non-fiction I’ve read in a long time – and we read a LOT of children’s non-fiction. What I love most about it is that the author clearly has a passion for bats – and he manages to pass at least some of that passion on to the reader! Aren’t Emma’s bats (and other creatures) adorable? I don’t know what the numbering/lettering stands for, but they are happy bats!
Learning about bats was also a great opening for discussing the many different mammals on the earth. Both Emma and Johnny have a decent understanding of what makes an animal a mammal now, and it’s all thanks to Bats!
I’m linking this post to What My Child is Reading at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns and Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom and stART at A Mommy’s Adventures.
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
We have bats in our garden. It’s fascinating to stand and watch them flitting about. Sounds a great book!
This sounds like a great book and I love the illustration that it inspired! Thank you for linking to stART :0)
Thanks for this book title. Joe loves non-fiction, and I think he would enjoy it. He likes anything to do with nature and animals.
Susannah has been into bats ever since October when we learned about nocturnal animals. I’m popping over to the library website now to see if I can locate this title! Thanks for sharing!
Her illustrations are awesome! I love the lady bug, and I agree bats are very cool.
@Elisa – You might like them a little more after reading this book. They have some very nice maternal qualities, like flying around with their babies attached and being able to distinguish their baby’s cry from that of thousands of bats in a cave. And, of course, nursing their babies =)
Ben thinks I’m silly for not liking bats. I do appreciate their mosquito-eating qualities, so I like them in theory, but not in person.
Sounds like a fantastic book! Thank you for sharing a favourite.
It looks like you guys have been busy. We were away this past week. The aquarium trip looks great! We’ll have to check it out.
PS – Thanks for joining WMCIR!
This sounds like a great book. Anna has a great passion for non-fiction, so we read a lot of it. I will look for this book. Interestingly, yesterday we watched a Reading Rainbow episode on the book, “Not Only Chicken Do” which mostly talked about egg-laying creatures and then gracefully moved to explain the difference between them and mammals. I will be looking both for your book and for that book too.
Yeah, I’m not too fond of bats. When you go to Kruger Park during the day they hang above the outdoor restaurant seating areas. Their eyes are freaky!
I’ll need to see if our library has that book. My daughters love the bats at our local zoo.