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Red Eyes Or Blue Feathers: A Book About Animal Colors
Describes how animals survive in the wild by adapting their colors to the environment that they live in. Animals shown include a red-eyed tree frog, a polar bear, a red fox, a seahorse, a killer whale, a macaw, a black rhinoceros, a jewel beetle
24 pages, Library Binding
First published January 1, 2005
18 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 2, 2019
Kudos to any book that can hold a child’s attention and leave him or her wanting more. Red Eyes or Blue Feathers does a good job of providing information about various animals throughout nature and how their respective color adaptations allow them to grow and thrive. The language is easy to follow and the illustrations provide great visual support.
Check the book out, with the little one(s) in your life. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Check the book out, with the little one(s) in your life. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
November 2, 2022
Red Eyes or Blue Feathers: A Book about Animal Colors by Patricia M. Stockland details how color benefits 9 different animals in ways so that they can hide from predators or prey, signal mating readiness, and blend in with their surroundings.
Each double-page spread contains a brief (1-2 lines), decodable, present-tense description of an action the animal performs regularly, a longer description of how the animal uses color, and a fun fact related to that animal (may or may not be related to the color content). Across each double-page spread there is an illustration (no photographs) of the animal in its natural environment.
Some of the pages are done really well. For instance, the killer whale page (pp. 10-11) talks about how the black looks like the dark water and the white looks like the sunlight above. The red-eyed tree frog page (pp. 2-3) talks about how it closes its eyes to blend in the green with the trees. I also appreciate the illustrations on the red fox (pp. 6-7) and seahorse (pp. 8-9) pages depict the way the animal blends in, even though the text is a little lacking.
However, there are quite a few pages that make me ask more. For instance, the macaw (pp. 12-13) - how exactly does being bright red and blue help the bird blend in in the green rainforest? The picture here would suggest the opposite, and there is not much that gets elaborated on in the text. And how does it benefit the black rhino (pp. 14-15) to be black?
The back of the book contains a "match the fact to the animal" section for young readers, more fun facts about some of the animals (more of them relating to colors this time), a glossary, and an index. The hardcover edition (at my school's education library) contains further reading suggestions, but the paperback Journeys copy (which I rescued from a kindergarten teacher who was giving it away) does not. Because I do think it's useful and there are definitely some areas of this text where kids may have questions, it's possible I might photocopy the page and staple it into the copy I have.
The book came in a Houghton-Mifflin Journeys set for early kindergarten, but the reading level seems more like early to middle first grade or above. This would make a good read-aloud to accompany science content in the primary grades or even preschool level. It would be cool to pair this text with photos of the animals in their natural habitats and have students attempt to locate them in real life photographs and see what they notice about the colors.
Each double-page spread contains a brief (1-2 lines), decodable, present-tense description of an action the animal performs regularly, a longer description of how the animal uses color, and a fun fact related to that animal (may or may not be related to the color content). Across each double-page spread there is an illustration (no photographs) of the animal in its natural environment.
Some of the pages are done really well. For instance, the killer whale page (pp. 10-11) talks about how the black looks like the dark water and the white looks like the sunlight above. The red-eyed tree frog page (pp. 2-3) talks about how it closes its eyes to blend in the green with the trees. I also appreciate the illustrations on the red fox (pp. 6-7) and seahorse (pp. 8-9) pages depict the way the animal blends in, even though the text is a little lacking.
However, there are quite a few pages that make me ask more. For instance, the macaw (pp. 12-13) - how exactly does being bright red and blue help the bird blend in in the green rainforest? The picture here would suggest the opposite, and there is not much that gets elaborated on in the text. And how does it benefit the black rhino (pp. 14-15) to be black?
The back of the book contains a "match the fact to the animal" section for young readers, more fun facts about some of the animals (more of them relating to colors this time), a glossary, and an index. The hardcover edition (at my school's education library) contains further reading suggestions, but the paperback Journeys copy (which I rescued from a kindergarten teacher who was giving it away) does not. Because I do think it's useful and there are definitely some areas of this text where kids may have questions, it's possible I might photocopy the page and staple it into the copy I have.
The book came in a Houghton-Mifflin Journeys set for early kindergarten, but the reading level seems more like early to middle first grade or above. This would make a good read-aloud to accompany science content in the primary grades or even preschool level. It would be cool to pair this text with photos of the animals in their natural habitats and have students attempt to locate them in real life photographs and see what they notice about the colors.
November 6, 2021
Explores colors in nature and the way different animals blend into their habitats.
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April 8, 2014Red Eyes or Blue Feathers by Patricia M. Stockland is a great book that teaches students facts on different animals. In this book the author uses descriptive language and eye popping illustrations to answer common questions about vast species, such as how they move, what they eat and their habitats. I would use this book in a science lesson to introduce students to animals and their habitats.
March 10, 2011
My toddler sat through me reading this book and asked me to read it again, so it must have some merit. This is very basic--probably my toddler fits in to the ideal age group: beginning readers. Simple, colorful illustrations, with moderately interesting nuggets of info.
May 2, 2011
This was a good book - didn't hold my 3 year old's attention as well...not one that he'd happily pick out to read over and over, but still good.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews