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The True Book series is an older book series, from Children’s Press, giving basic information and simple text, suitable for a child just learning to read. Some of the titles have entered the public domain and Plumfield Press has started to reprint them in nice paperback editions using high-quality glossy paper and computer-graphic-refreshed color illustrations. This review covers the first three titles in the Plumfield Press effort. This series can be characterized as learn-to-read books but using non-fiction, not fiction. A child can learn to read at the same time learning high-interest organized facts about the natural world that God has made for us. The scientific material in these books is not dated at all but is basic for a child’s understanding of the natural world.
The True Book of Animal Babies by Illa Podendorf covers baby mammals, birds, and reptiles. With well-chosen, simple text and adorable pictures (God has made us to think babies of any kind are cute), the author covers the different processes for being born – laid eggs and live births. She emphasizes that all baby animals come from larger animals like themselves (that’s why we call it “re-production!”). She makes a good point by showing how baby animals of different kinds – birds, reptiles, and mammals, require different amounts of time to be born, different kinds of food, and different amounts of care in order to become independent. These three requirements differ between species (ducks vs. geese vs. chickens) and kinds (reptiles vs. birds vs. mammals). Text and pictures about humans are interspersed in the pages, since our bodies are very similar to mammals in many ways. However, the book of Genesis tells us that we are made in the image of God, so we are different from the animals and even have dominion over them as stewards, not as tyrants. Podendorf, using very simple text, gives a tremendous amount of information about animal and human babies in her book, which is not explicitly Biblical but is consistent with God being the Designer and Creator of all life.
The True Book of Plants We Know by O. Irene Sevrey Miner is a wonderful book. The author teaches many facts about plants – their variety of shapes, locales, and uses. I especially liked the general pages on the parts of a plant and the parts of a tree. Once each part was defined, there was then an overall diagram of the plant or tree, with each individual part positioned and labelled properly. Also, Miner saying that a tree is a big plant was important, since a child by himself can’t necessarily see a connection between a large tree and a small garden or house plant. The text is simple and clear and the pictures are as well, with pictures and text nicely interacting. A young child will learn a surprising amount of logically organized factual information about plants by learning to read using this book.
When reading The True Book of Birds We Know, by Margaret Friskey, for this review, I learned things about birds that I had not known before! Think what a child can learn as she or he learns to read using this book! In particular, I did not know some of the details about bird’s feet, all with four toes but designed for different kinds of motion – perching on a branch, climbing in a tree, or running along the ground. Even the webbed feet of ducks and geese have four toes. I also liked the introductory material, which said that all birds have feathers and wings but not all fly or are at home in the air. Starting out with general facts then going to the particular is a good way of teaching and a logical way to arrange knowledge and connections. I also learned that a bird’s diet, whether seeds or insects, determines whether it needs to migrate or not. Lovely pictures, well-written easy-to-read text, and lots of factual but insightful information make this a great book to combine learning to read with early science lessons.