One Day in the Tropical Rain Forest

This is one I did not donate to the school, but kept to keep on the bookshelf.

Good shipping service, and obviously good book, this was a part of my son's summer reading homework and it's for real a good book

Arrived in great condition, exactly as described.

Collect all of the series!

An unnamed butterfly must be found today in order to save this chunk of the rainforest. Loggers are already on the way to cut it all down. The premise is exciting, but the execution of the story, particularly in the beginning, is often less than pulse-stirring, weighted down by a thousand facts about rainforests. These facts are, however, by far the most interesting part of the book, and there's even an index. Once I was into the book, I enjoyed it very much. So far I have not been able to get my son to do more than open it, and I think the slow start may be the problem. This would be an exvellent book to have in a classroom during a unit on rainforests.

We have a lot of the one day books, They are good reading , Something different. Something new to read.

First, this book is not one which most elementary-aged children could read successfully on their own. The one-star review dings this book because her 9 year old could not get into it - and I can understand that. My 7th grader liked this book because he could appreciate the educational value; yes the story is interesting, but only if it excites you that you are learning cool information about tropical rain forests.My 7th grader and I LOVED learning about sloths (who house an entire ecosystem in their algae-coated coats), Hercules beetles the size of baseballs, soldier termites who build nests out of chewed wood and fecal glue, armies of ants capable of killing and devouring a mammal as large as a jaguar (who knew? Kind of guts the argument that ants native to Texas are anything worse than a nuisance!)In addition to introducing readers to fascinating information about tropical plants and animals, Ms. George describes the different layers of rainforest vegetation -- canopy, understory, shrub layer, forest floor -- thus bringing core science knowledge to life. I never before thought about the fact that there is no winter rest period in tropical forests such that fallen leaves do not have time to decay and form deep soil. (Interesting.) She also puts into stark relief the reality that plants compete and battle for access to sunlight: plants in a tropical rainforest are not passive and inert like they sometimes seem elsewhere in the world.And Jean Craighead George's gift of imagery is so vividly illustrated in this book. Millions of ants fan out forty feet across the ground "like a river of tar." Thousands of fleeing crickets, kaydids, and beetles "roar like a chain saw." Ants "stir like a pot of boiling water" in their home between rocks, a soldier beetle has a "gunlike snout," the face of a baby sloth looks like a turtle's face (i.e., an animal most children have seen and, thus, can identify with), the mother sloth is "an apartment house" since plants and some ninety little creatures live in her long fur.Not including the challenging names of tropical plants and animals, the text is CHOCK full of sophisticated vocabulary (which is why it is better for an older reader): quiver, bivouac, fecal, noxious, chrysalis, ominous, bracts, corollas, rhythmically, doomsday, sawyers, understories, laden, humidity, ferocious, bromeliads, prehensile, enthusiastic, ornithologist, crimson, herpetologist, marsupial, sac, mammalogist, mischevious, botanist, lepidopterist, transparent, gossamer-winged, industrialist, iridescent, tantalizingly, ingenious, nourishment, marauding, gulley, mature, pincers, flayed, piteously, horde, penetrated, corridors, caste system, nutrients, protozoans, cellulose, Fahrenheit, avalanched, vicious, mewing, bloodcurdling, yowl, lamented, evaporated, contemplating, siesta, chittering, abate, streambeds, cascading, mournful, buttresses, parasol, fungus, fascinated, zinged, abreast, predator, descending, hasten . . .BTW: the story is so realistic I assumed the new species of butterly discovered in the story -- cercyonis isabella -- would be a real species. The butterfly in the story has a blue forewing with an iridescent purple spot, and a green-gold hindwing with a white and blue checkboard design. Through online research I discovered that there is no cercyonis isabella species although yes there is a genus cercyonis and an isabella species in a different genus. Both are bland looking (mostly tan/brown) moths, not colorful butterflies. Disappointing that after doing SO MUCH detailed research Ms. George couldn't have picked a real genus of butterfly, a genus that plausibly could contain a new species like the butterfly described in the story.There also does not seem to be an "International Tropical Rain Forest of the Macaw," the name given to the book's rainforest at the end. The book is a work of fiction, so of course I cannot fault her for using a fictional name for the forest . . . but, again, even though the story is fictional she should have used a plausible butterfly genus since the rest of the book is so realistic and factual.

I bought these for my students to read in class. They throughly enjoyed it!