Nonfiction Series Books for Every Interest and Age

If your children have uttered the dreaded words, “I’m bored,” bring them to your nearest local library to feast on all the new nonfiction books that have been published during the last year. Whatever interest your child has, there’s a book to spark the passion.

Just in is a series called World of Design with Craft Ideas from Around the World. Titles include: Toys and Models, Masks, Musical Instruments, Bags and Purses, and Festival Decorations. The step-by-step directions are easy to follow, and the finished product looks professional. If you have tweens and teens in the family, you might suggest that they check out Cool Crafts with Old T-shirts: Green Projects for Resourceful Kids by Carol Sirrine.

With all the wild weather we have in Oklahoma, and the unfortunate disasters around the world that we see on television, the series Disaster Survivors might be educational for us all. The menacing titles will appeal to the sensational-minded kids in your house: Leveled by an Earthquake! Mangled by a Hurricane! Devastated by a Volcano! and Erased by a Tornado! Let’s hope that we don’t get Hammered by a Heat Wave!

Children who are reluctant readers can often be encouraged with high-interest, easy reading material. Those readers might enjoy The World’s Deadliest Weather on Earth, The Deadliest Places on Earth, The Deadliest Animals on Earth, The Deadliest Bugs on Earth, The Deadliest Jobs on Earth and The Deadliest Plants on Earth. The reading levels for these titles are 1-2 and the interest level is 3-9.

A new series called I Like Reading About Animals! by Faith Hickman Brynie supports National Science Education Standards for K-4 science. The Words to Know section introduces subject-specific vocabulary words for the new reader and fluent reader, including pronunciation and definitions. Parents and children can enjoy the pictures and information together. There are six titles in the series so far.

Young children will enjoy the series Animal Clues by Joanne Randolph, which includes Whose Back is This? Whose Eyes Are These? and Whose Nose is This? Each provides a great guessing game for preschoolers.

The ZigZag series by Becky Baines is both entertaining and educational, introducing children to the following fascinating topics: What Did One Elephant Say to the Other?: A Book About Animal Communication, A Den is a Bed for a Bear: A Book About Hibernation, The Bones You Own: A Book About the Human Body, Your Skin Holds You In: A Book About Your Skin, and What’s In That Egg: A Book About Life Cycles.

Children will enjoy using their powers of deduction with Nature Riddles photo riddle books, featuring the titles: Camouflage Clues, Guess What’s Growing, What’s That Shadow? and Mystery Animal Tracks. The pictures are beautiful, and the rhyming text helps solve the riddles.

Award-winning author and photographer Nic Bishop’s books Nic Bishop Spiders and Nic Bishop Frogs are beautiful books that children and adults will love to read together. His latest photographs appear in Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot by Sy Montgomery. Bishop travelled to New Zealand to take pictures of this endangered parrot.

Another favorite is Jim Arnosky, who uses binoculars and cameras to get close enough to the animals so he can illustrate them with his pencil and acrylic paints. Arnosky’s latest books are Crocodile Safari and Slither and Crawl: Eye to Eye with Reptiles. The latter book features giant fold-out pages of life-size reptiles including snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodiles and alligators.

Reading nonfiction books with pictures supports visual literacy and reading for comprehension, so keep reading nonfiction books with your children. Not only will it improve their reading skills, it will feed their interests and give them hours of enjoyment. With all of these great choices, your children might be saying, “I love this book!” rather than “I’m bored.”