Too Hot? Too Cold?
Caroline Arnold, author
Caroline Arnold is the award-winning author of more than one hundred and forty books for children, including Wiggle and Waggle, and A Warmer World. She lives in Los Angles, California.
Read more about Caroline
Annie Patterson, illustrator
Before moving to Barrow, Alaska, Annie worked as a digital ink and paint artist for a leading children's CD-ROM game company. Whale Snow is her first illustrated children's book, written by Debby Dahl Edwardson. Annie is a freelance artist, working primarily in watercolor.
Read more about Annie
- An NSTA/CBC Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12 2014
School Library Journal
This well-organized title uses a picture-book format to take a relatively boring concept--temperature regulation in people and animals--and make it downright interesting. Arnold touches on all aspects of the subject, from the internal (fevers, muscle contraction, goose bumps, sweating) to the external (sunbathing, burrowing, hibernating, migrating). The text is clear and readable, and the design includes plenty of white space to avoid overwhelming readers. The illustrations, though appealing, feature muted tones that are unlikely to grab readers' attention. The lack of an index or table of contents lessens the book's usefulness for reports.
Booklist
With an open, relaxed format and short blocks of simple text, much of it strategically placed so as to appear as captions for the copious illustrations, this should draw readers regardless of their previous interest in the topic. Beginning with a sound explanation of the difference between warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals, Arnold then contrasts methods that humans and a variety of other animals use to adjust body temperature, such as sweating, body movement, and so forth. The proper terms endothermic and ectothermic are included. Concluding pages give information about temperature-controlling methods unique to animals, like hibernation and migration. The appealing assortment of animals is made even more so by Patterson's attractive watercolors sprinkled throughout. This would work well as an introductory read-aloud and will answer almost any questions young readers might have on the topic
Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-58089-277-3
E-book
ISBN: 978-1-60734-596-1 EPUB
Ages: 6-9
Page count: 32
11 x 8 1/2