Awards

• Commended for 2018 Children's Book Council of Australia, Book of the Year Awards 2018
• Commended for 2018 Children’s Book Council of Australia, Book of the Year Awards 2018

Overview

Busy Little Creatures is skilfully illustrated with each creature hand drawn and then collaged with many layers of patterned paper giving texture, vibrancy and depth to each page. An engaging book full of busy little creatures sure to delight and fascinate both children and adults. A fun way to explore and introduce movement, colours, patterns, sizes and numbers whilst supporting your child's learning and encouraging outdoor play and adventure. 1 leaping green grasshopper 2 fluttering orange butterflies 3 hovering purple dragonflies 4 speedy blue flies 5 ambling red ladybirds 6 scurrying grey slaters 7 meandering brown millipedes 8 waggling yellow bees 9 marching black ants 10 crawling multi-coloured beetles A special A4 activity book full of great play based ideas has been developed to accompany this picture book.

Full Product Details

9780648115601

Table of Contents

Reviews

Books that help children to count from one to ten are common. Many are pretty unimaginative, almost indistinguishable and often rely on alliterative cliches such as two tadpoles, four fish, six serpents and so on. This book is quite different. It cleverly tackles four themes at once; numbers, colours, verbs and common animals. The selected creatures are insects and other invertebrates that children are most likely to find in their gardens, reinforcing the identification, naming and observation of these. Each animal has its behavioural characteristics described; hovering dragonflies, meandering millipedes, waggling bees, marching ants and so forth, introducing interesting and quite advanced words to infant readers as well as accurate rudiments of animal behaviour. Colours are well matched to the featured animals. The multicoloured beetle is a gem. The book is beautiful. Fiona Bowden has created her small menagerie from cut-outs of charmingly patterned paper, embellished with hand-drawn elements. The book's careful design allows it to be read either to teach any one of the four themes or include all of them together. Hard and soft covered versions are available, but the latter has the added bonus of attractive endpapers where the animals and their names are shown together. Each book ends with a double page spread of all the creatures in a lovely garden. These two pages alone would make a great bedroom poster for any young child. Dr Rob Morrison

Books that help children to count from one to ten are common. Many are pretty unimaginative, almost indistinguishable and often rely on alliterative clichés such as two tadpoles, four fish, six serpents and so on. This book is quite different. It cleverly tackles four themes at once; numbers, colours, verbs and common animals. The selected creatures are insects and other invertebrates that children are most likely to find in their gardens, reinforcing the identification, naming and observation of these. Each animal has its behavioural characteristics described; hovering dragonflies, meandering millipedes, waggling bees, marching ants and so forth, introducing interesting and quite advanced words to infant readers as well as accurate rudiments of animal behaviour. Colours are well matched to the featured animals. The multicoloured beetle is a gem. The book is beautiful. Fiona Bowden has created her small menagerie from cut-outs of charmingly patterned paper, embellished with hand-drawn elements. The book’s careful design allows it to be read either to teach any one of the four themes or include all of them together. Hard and soft covered versions are available, but the latter has the added bonus of attractive endpapers where the animals and their names are shown together. Each book ends with a double page spread of all the creatures in a lovely garden. These two pages alone would make a great bedroom poster for any young child. Dr Rob Morrison

Author Information

Raising Literacy Australia is a not for profit organisation that operates early childhood reading development programs. Part of our operation is providing rich literacy and numerracy resources for the early childhood sector and families through our publishing house Little Book Press.

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