Recommended Books about Animals

• Reading: (see books listed here) folktales (timeless classics with animals from around the world), field guides, animal reference books.
• Writing: research (pursue your animal questions), fiction, interviews, letters to authors.
• Geography and Social Studies: animal origins, migrations, meanings found in animal folktales showing animals' relationship to location, symbolic meanings of animals in various cultures.
• History: animals through the ages, such as cave paintings, Medieval bestiaries and unicorn tapestries (visit the Cloisters)
• Math: weight and measurement of animals from birth to adult, distance of migrations, quantities of food consumed, etc.
• Science: biology including: anatomy, camouflage, hunting and self-protection, habitat, animal behavior, evolution of the species, mammal (human) biology, modern experiments such as cloning.
• Art: drawing, sculpture, puppets, animals both real and imaginary, animals found in art (Picasso, Chagall, African sculpture, etc.).
• Music: Peter and the Wolf (introduces instruments), Carnival of Animals.
• Phys. Ed.: trips to the zoo, acting out animal behavior, nature walks for bird-watching, create your own animal field guide for your block, local park or backyard (this activity uses every subject!).

Nonfiction

• Zoobooks Magazine. Receive a monthly issue on a different animal, without any advertising and full of photos. This is a perfect place for a child to begin researching an animal.
• Beastly Behaviors: A Zoo Lover's Companion , by Janine M. Benyus. At the end of each chapter, on specific zoo animals, there is a behavior checklist that you can copy and take with you. Become a true zoologist when you visit the zoo by looking for new behaviors, checking them off your list, and keeping a log of your visits.
• National Geographic Encyclopedia of Animals, by Karen McGhee

Fiction

• Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey
• The Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis
• The Trumpet of the Swan, by E. B. White
• Stuart Little, by E. B. White
• Because of Winn-Dixie, by Kate DiCamillo
• The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo
• Rascal (based on a true story), by Sterling North
• The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
• Watership Down, by Richard Adams
• The Wind in the Willows (Oxford Children's Classics), by Kenneth Grahame.
• Winnie the Pooh, by A.A. Milne.
• Complete Illustrated Lewis Carroll – includes Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.
• Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling.
• Mr. Popper's Penguins, by Florence and Richard Atwater
• Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell (told from the horse’s point of view)
• Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White
• Aesop's Fables for Children – includes a read-and-listen CD.
• The Fables of La Fontaine
• Fables, by Arnold Lobel
• The Tale of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter.