Reptile Books

A quick look at some of our favorite reptile books. And yes, after reading them, we added information to our chart. We just don't tire of it!

Life-Size Reptiles by Hannah Wilson is a very large book with fold out pages so you can see many of the reptiles life-sized. My children thought this book was totally awesome and amazing and they loved to look at it and unfold the pages, and fight over it, and give mom a heart-attack thinking they were going to rip the pages and we'd have to *donate* even more money to the library. Fortunately, they didn't destroy the book. I highly recommend even though it might raise your blood-pressure just a little.

I love DK books. Love them. Reptiles by Colin McCarthy was no exception. We didn't read this book from cover to cover, but the children spent tons of time poring over the incredible pics. Definitely check this one out.

Reptiles by Catriona Clarke was our favorite reptile book to read cover to cover. The format is very child friendly and the pics are great. Fantastic book.

What is a Reptile? by Robert Sneddon we used as a reference mostly. The pics are great. Especially the pic of the frilled lizard--Miriam's favorite reptile. It is another good one.

Warning: What Do You Call a Group of Alligators by Emma Nathan causes hysterical giggling. I am not sure exactly why a group of toads being called a knot is so funny to my children, but it is. Alligators=congregation, another one that had them laughing. A group of frogs=army. You should have heard my son with that one. Anyway, either they were in a very silly mood or this book is high comedy. Either way, it was fun and informative.

Life Science: Reptiles by Janice Parker is another solid choice. Good pics, accessible text (although we skimmed quite a bit because we'd read so much by then).

Do not be confused or alarmed. I recognize that the book in this picture is not about reptiles, however, there is another book in the same series about reptiles and that is the one we read. I couldn't find a picture of it, so I substituted because the covers are almost identical.

The book is actually called Animals in Disguise: Reptiles by Lynn Stone. Maybe it is a boy thing, but my son loves anything to do with the concept of camouflage. He lays on the floor and thinks you won't be able to see him if he is wearing brown and he practices blending in the with the background. Every animal we study we try to find a "disguise" book to go along with it because my kids never tire of the concept. This was a good one.

To sum up our reptile unit: It could have been better. I was trying to put together a different unit and stuff reptiles in during the holidays, so we didn't do everything I had planned. On the other hand, we did read quite a few good books and made a few fun crafts, so if could have been worse.

I recommend you spend a little more time than we did and that you do some charades with reptiles. Since there are so few kinds, the kids can act out the different reptiles and guess them fairly easily. Also, my kids don't care if there are twenty million repeats, so the game remains fun for them for a long time.

I also recommend going to a local pet store and looking at their collection of lizards/snakes/reptiles in general for sale. Kids like that and it is free.

Good luck and let me know if you do anything really fun with reptiles. I'll add it to the list of good ideas to help others.