What do you think?
Rate this book
Read and Wonder
Gecko
The creators of the award-winning Flight of the Honey Bee team up again for a look at a remarkable lizard: the gecko.
Meet the gecko, the escape artist of the lizard world. Hawks, rats, and snakes would love to catch one for their dinner, but the gecko’s amazing ability to protect itself and outsmart predators keeps it safe from day to day. The gecko is more than a match for its pursuers, using clever camouflage and dropping its tail as a decoy to evade them. And even beyond its escape abilities, the gecko is fascinating, with feet covered in tiny hairs for gripping (even upside down!) and eyes that it cleans with its tongue. This wonderful introduction to one of the coolest lizards on the planet will captivate amateur scientists.
Meet the gecko, the escape artist of the lizard world. Hawks, rats, and snakes would love to catch one for their dinner, but the gecko’s amazing ability to protect itself and outsmart predators keeps it safe from day to day. The gecko is more than a match for its pursuers, using clever camouflage and dropping its tail as a decoy to evade them. And even beyond its escape abilities, the gecko is fascinating, with feet covered in tiny hairs for gripping (even upside down!) and eyes that it cleans with its tongue. This wonderful introduction to one of the coolest lizards on the planet will captivate amateur scientists.
32 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 1, 2020
2 people are currently reading
25 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 27, 2019
Lots of great information about geckos with wonderful illustrations
Read
February 12, 2023A lovely book, with interesting facts woven into the story and beautiful illustrations.
October 17, 2017
Raymond Huber and Brian Lovelock have teamed up again to produce another beautiful narrative nonfiction picturebook. During the course of a day, Gecko sheds his skin, hides from a hawk, eats a cockroach and a mosquito, loses his tail to a rat and scares off an intruder. Alongside the story of Gecko's day are short, easily-digested paragraphs of information. These are distinguished from the story by the use of a different, slightly smaller font. There are also further information and an index at the back.
This book is perfect for a wide age range. While the story itself contains a lot of information, it is told in an engaging and memorable way; "the fringe of his skin stretches out until his body seems to melt into the rock" so will be enjoyed by young children. Older children, while still enjoying the story, will be fascinated by the information snippets. All ages will enjoy Brian's vibrant, speckled artwork. The gecko featured in this book is an Australian Tokay gecko but the information in the book also applies to our New Zealand geckos.
Reviewed by Penny Guy (Bookrapt)
This book is perfect for a wide age range. While the story itself contains a lot of information, it is told in an engaging and memorable way; "the fringe of his skin stretches out until his body seems to melt into the rock" so will be enjoyed by young children. Older children, while still enjoying the story, will be fascinated by the information snippets. All ages will enjoy Brian's vibrant, speckled artwork. The gecko featured in this book is an Australian Tokay gecko but the information in the book also applies to our New Zealand geckos.
Reviewed by Penny Guy (Bookrapt)
June 16, 2018
Another quality book in Walker Australia's Nature Storybooks series. Like the others before it, Gecko presents narrative story and expository facts in different fonts on each page, to satisfy curious children of all interests. Beautiful illustrations. Back matter includes more information and an index.
March 8, 2020
This lovely book reminded me of our first holiday in Australia. After days and days of researching to find a place to capture the Australian pristine nature, we decided to book a room on Fitzroy Island, a National Park where the Great Barrier Reef meets to rainforest. It proved to be a great choice and we had one of the best holidays ever. The landscape was magic, the flora and fauna diverse, nothing we had seen before.
For me, the holiday was also a chance to be introduced to the diverse Australian world of lizards. It took me a few good days to accept the dimensions of a monitor lizard or to accept the idea that tiny geckos could be found and heard everywhere – in the hotel room, in the restaurant, on the footpath (and they do seem to smile most of the time).
Written on two levels – narrative and factual, Gecko by Raymond Huber and Brian Lovelock is a great choice to learn about these lizards, as it covers most of the aspects of their lives. “The escape artists of the lizard world”, geckos can be found on every continent except Antarctica. There are more than 1500 different kinds of geckos in all colours and patterns. Following a blue-gray coloured Tokay we read about their daily rituals. These tiny creatures have a busy life, trying to hide from predators, looking for food or mates, shedding several times a year or regenerating their tails
"Gecko camouflage includes: dappled skin patterns and colours: turning lighter or darker: and skin folds that flatten out so that the body casts no shadow".
See full review on blog:
https://fromwordstoworlds.wordpress.c...
For me, the holiday was also a chance to be introduced to the diverse Australian world of lizards. It took me a few good days to accept the dimensions of a monitor lizard or to accept the idea that tiny geckos could be found and heard everywhere – in the hotel room, in the restaurant, on the footpath (and they do seem to smile most of the time).
Written on two levels – narrative and factual, Gecko by Raymond Huber and Brian Lovelock is a great choice to learn about these lizards, as it covers most of the aspects of their lives. “The escape artists of the lizard world”, geckos can be found on every continent except Antarctica. There are more than 1500 different kinds of geckos in all colours and patterns. Following a blue-gray coloured Tokay we read about their daily rituals. These tiny creatures have a busy life, trying to hide from predators, looking for food or mates, shedding several times a year or regenerating their tails
"Gecko camouflage includes: dappled skin patterns and colours: turning lighter or darker: and skin folds that flatten out so that the body casts no shadow".
See full review on blog:
https://fromwordstoworlds.wordpress.c...
July 26, 2019
This gorgeous picture book non-fiction for a preschool to early elementary school audience offers an educational, but oh so fun look at an interesting animal that readers will gobble up from cover to cover. Rich text that is fun to read aloud appears in two type-faces which offer a dual way to read this book. One path is a sequential story that follows one single gecko as he does things like molt, use camouflage to hide, eat, and many more interesting bits; the other type face offers more fact based information about what the story text and pictures are telling the reader. The facts and story have a coolness factor that will keep kids engaged throughout and one can imagine as they read the vocal reactions kids might have to things like the animal eating its own molted skin or tail. The water color, acrylic, and color pencil illustrations literally pop off the page in an explosion of color and their large size will make sure that every kid in the room will be able to see them if it is being read aloud to a group.
Book extras include a More about Geckos’ page and an index so kids can quickly go back and find their favorite parts. This is a first American edition of this resource which was originally published in 2017 by an award winning New Zealand author and illustrator team (Flight of the Honey Bee in 2013) and brought to the North American audience by Candlewick.
I would highly recommend this book for purchase by any school or public library.
This book was provided by the publisher for professional review by SWON Libraries.
Book extras include a More about Geckos’ page and an index so kids can quickly go back and find their favorite parts. This is a first American edition of this resource which was originally published in 2017 by an award winning New Zealand author and illustrator team (Flight of the Honey Bee in 2013) and brought to the North American audience by Candlewick.
I would highly recommend this book for purchase by any school or public library.
This book was provided by the publisher for professional review by SWON Libraries.
June 7, 2019
Gecko by Raymond Huber, illustrated by Brian Lovelock. PICTURE BOOK NONFICTION. Candlewick, 2019. $17 9780763698850
BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3), EL - ADVISABLE
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
Meet the gecko.
Huber writes text in two levels for a young student to enjoy. Lovelock’s illustrations draw the eye around the page in a celebration of the small critter. I could see a kindergartener or first grader using this as the basis of a short report. A class of older students could use the book as a pattern to write and illustrate their own creature’s story.
Cindy, Middle School Librarian, MLS
https://kissthebookjr.blogspot.com/20...
BUYING ADVISORY: EL (K-3), EL - ADVISABLE
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
Meet the gecko.
Huber writes text in two levels for a young student to enjoy. Lovelock’s illustrations draw the eye around the page in a celebration of the small critter. I could see a kindergartener or first grader using this as the basis of a short report. A class of older students could use the book as a pattern to write and illustrate their own creature’s story.
Cindy, Middle School Librarian, MLS
https://kissthebookjr.blogspot.com/20...
January 16, 2019
Wonderful illustrations and great information about this remarkable reptile.
March 3, 2019
Fascinating and kind of gross. I certainly know a lot more about geckos after reading this.
May 9, 2019
Great information and illustrations.
September 12, 2019
Patrick and I read LOTS of non-fiction animal books, and this was really educational and entertaining, even for me!
August 12, 2022
Beautiful artwork and interesting facts I didn’t know.
April 7, 2023
Delightful! Bought for students, but I enjoyed learning from it :)
April 27, 2025
I borrowed this via Libby but would love to read a physical copy someday. The illustrations are gorgeous!
October 11, 2021
This book tells a story about a gecko and the things it does. On each page there is also an informational piece about geckos.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews