Nature has a way of being cruel and being kind, here are a few fun facts where you can decide, if it is a trick or treat!
-Bats are the only mammals that can fly
-A flamingo can only eat when its head is upside down.
-If a kangaroo’s tail is lifted off the ground it is unable to hop. They use their tail for balance.
-A baby shark is ready to go fast when it is born, so that the mother shark doesn’t eat it.
-An owl can’t move its eyes, but it can turn its head 270 degrees.
-The cassowary is a beautiful bird and is predominately a vegetarian, but it can tear holes in flesh like Swiss cheese.
-The orca has no natural predator in the sea and they hunt in groups just like wolves do on land.
-Rhinos amble through the African Savanna and thickets of dense plants filled with ticks that attach to the rhinos and make them itch! The tick bird rides along while eating the tasty treat!
-The vampire squid is a creepy ocean creature that squirts glowing goo from its arms.
Find these facts and many more in Arbordale’s For Creative Minds sections! Take a look while you are eating your trick or treat loot!
Who is the Hungriest Mouth in the Seas of the South? Where is the Seas of the South located? Find out in our For Creative Minds section linked below, but first meet the creator behind this fun and colorful book!
Peter Walters lives in Cornwall England, but has traveled all over the world as an educator. He has helped children write their own picture books, but this is the first published picture book of his own. Find out what inspired Peter’s book and his art…
What was your incentive to write this particular book?
I can quite vividly picture where the journey of this book began. I was sitting on sandy dunes in Otago, NZ watching two brave yellow-eyed penguins scamper past a snoozing fur seal to a rocky alcove. I felt then that the richness of the environment and web of predators and prey was so detailed; that I believed it could so effectively engage with a child’s curiosity.
How has teaching children all over the world influenced your writing?
I am fortunate that my work with children has exposed me to a variety of cultures and it has always been fascinating to observe the role of the child and the attitude towards childhood wherever I have been. While I have seen many differences between cultures I have also witnessed traits that appear universal and I am certain the relationship children have with storytelling is one such trait. One other direct influence on my writing for children is their interaction and interest in the natural world. We of course, as a species, have an intimate relationship with nature and while the modern world increasingly obstructs the time children have to cultivate this relationship, the deep-routed curiosity that an image of a lion, eagle or dolphin generates still remains.
Learn more about Peter in his full author interview here, or dive into the For Creative Minds section to learn more about this wild habitat!
Leave a comment and enter to win a copy of The Hungriest Mouth in the Sea!
“Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth,” Sherlock Holmes has said about his method of detective work. In Sylvan Dell’s new picture book, Deductive Detective, our hero Detective Duck shows that he’s learned from the best! He dons his best deerstalker hat, his much-too-big magnifying glass, and solves the case of the missing cake with the same methods the pros use!
That is, a style of logical thinking called “deductive reasoning.” In deductive reasoning, someone finds an answer they’re looking for by first finding out what the answer isn’t. When Detective Duck examines the clues and finds out which of his friends couldn’t have stolen the cake, it leads him closer to what really happened!
Of course, you don’t need a weird hat and a magnifying glass to use deductive reasoning. These methods come in handy every day! If you lose a toy, for example (or car keys), you may make your search easier by determining where the item isn’t.
“Oh yeah,” you may say, “I didn’t bring it to my friend’s house; I wasn’t holding it when I walked to the living room, or landed on the moon. I wouldn’t have brought it to my parents’ room or under the ocean or into Mordor.” By deciding where you shouldn’t look, you now have a better idea of where you should.
This kind of logic process happens throughout the day, sometimes without you even being aware of it; you might say your brain is always on the case as much as any detective!
Apply deductive reasoning the next time you’re in the bookstore: subtract the books that don’t meet the highest educational standards, offer pages of activities and facts, offer online supplements, are fun to look at and fun to read! You’ll be left with books by Sylvan Dell like The Deductive Detective!
-The cassowary is a beautiful bird and is predominately a vegetarian, but it can tear holes in flesh like Swiss cheese.
