Amazing Animals

by Betsy Franco

All Rookie Readers actively engage young readers, encouraging language development, building fluency, and promoting independent reading. By targeting a skill, like being able to spell and pronounce multisyllabic words, young readers are building fundamental reading skills with the help of fun, lively, colorfully illustrated stories.

32 pages, Paperback

First published March 28, 2002

About the author

Betsy Franco is an accomplished and versatile author whose body of work spans over 80 published titles, including fiction, young adult novels, picture books, and poetry collections. Known for her creative, collage-like approach to storytelling, Franco has also written a screenplay for each of her novels, with Naked optioned for film and The Art of Love currently in post-production.
Franco has a strong background in film and theater, having served as the screenwriting mentor for Metamorphosis, Junior Year, a film adaptation of her novel and play. The project was a family collaboration involving her sons James and Tom Franco, and it was well received at major festivals including Cinequest and Mill Valley, earning recognition as a top ten film by the San Jose Mercury News.
Her creative partnerships with her sons continue across various mediums: she appeared in James Franco’s film The Broken Tower and on General Hospital, while Tom Franco has illustrated her books and co-produced films with her. She also works closely with her son Dave Franco, who assists with her writing projects and participated in the audiobook of Metamorphosis, Junior Year alongside James.

Reviews

[Brianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Summary: "Amazing Animals" is a colorful nonfiction children’s book that informs its readers about facts of various animals like a frog having a sticky tongue or and elephant sucking up water in its trunk.

Evaluation: This text describes characteristics for a variety of animals in a simple yet descriptive way. This text is also fun, artistic, and creative with the use of simple sentence facts and artistic imaging to connect the text.

Teaching Idea: I would consider reading this text aloud to my kindergarten students to introduce the lesson of animal similarities and differences. This text provides multiple examples for students to see the commonalities and differences between various animals.

[Aarvik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read!

[Barbara Lovejoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute little book.

[Beyond the Pages with Eva K · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contained some really interesting information. It was great as a teaching tool and a conversation starter. I could definitely see it being used as a springboard for basic research for kids.