Book Review Time!!
My Favorite Animal: Cobras
Victoria Marcos

This nonfiction book about cobras from Xist publishing would make a great addition to any primary school library. It shares interesting facts about these deadly creatures and pairs relevant, real-life pictures with them to engage the reader. The book has a great format for younger readers; every few pages the reader is asked to recall a fact previously read. This is fabulous for helping children learn to read for content, and to retain what has been read. The answers are shared in the back of the book, along with a glossary of terms that might be unfamiliar to younger children.

The publisher has identified the target audience of this book as children from age 4 to 8. While I am sure this age group is appropriate, I felt that even younger children would be able to enjoy having this book read to them. There are very few sentences per page and the language is kept fairly simple. Children as young as 2 ½ could find this book entertaining, with the right individual reading it. The close-up pictures alone are fantastic for engaging pre-school children. Older children will still love learning how cobras hear and how their hiss sounds. The author did a great job of ensuring that this appeals to a wide range of young readers.

The book does repeat itself a bit, but it is done in such a way as to reinforce and provide detail about information previously introduced, as teachers do in the classroom. The information shared in this book was all relevant and factual, though I did feel there were places where more information should have been shared. For instance, the book tells us that cobras are deaf and “hear” through vibrations in the ground. This is certainly true; however, it is also true of all snakes, not just cobras.

All in all, I felt this was a great, informative book that would be enjoyed by children of a wide range of ages. A great introduction to non-fiction for younger children and a fantastic example of how interesting non-fiction can be!