Beaver, Bear, Snowshoe Hare

Suggested ages: 3-6, 7-12

Summary:

Twenty north woods mammals come alive in this collection of poems which are as varied as the animals they portray—the lilting lyric of a flying squirrel; a porcupine lumbering along in free verse, a beaver-with-a-toothache limerick, a majestic 12-point buck pantoum. Some interesting and little-known facts about each mammal are included in brief paragraphs accompanying each poem. A taxonomy of scientific names and a glossary of poetic forms make the book a valuable resource for extended learning about nature and the art of language.

Intended Learning Outcomes:

Sharing Beaver, Bear, Snowshoe Hare with children at home and at school will help them

Expand their concept of what a poem is and what makes it work;

Read with expression and appreciate the different sounds and rhythms of poetry;

Enjoy reading for its own sake, especially reading aloud, and reading as a performing art;

Interpret poetry in a variety of ways including art, movement, oral expression, and drama;

Write their own poems, alone or with help, using the poems in this book as models;

Add to their growing knowledge about the mammals of the north woods, their habitat, and some of their peculiar habits;

Become more aware of the inter-relatedness and inter-dependence of all life on our planet.

Introducing the Book:
Whether you are the parent of a young child or an elementary or middle school teacher, the best way to introduce Beaver, Bear, Snowshoe Hare is to show the cover, talk about what they see, read the title (but not the subtitle), identify the author and illustrator, and invite the children to guess what they might find when they look inside the book.

Why do you think the author chose this title?
What do you notice about the title? (Words start the same, sounds funny, some words rhyme.)
What kind of book do you think this will be? (Story about animals, nature stories, rhyming.)

Read the subtitle North Woods Mammal Poems and ask if it confirms their predictions. Ask what the children know about “mammals,” about the “north woods,” and about “poems.”

Page through the book, read some of the poem titles, and show and talk about what is in the illustrations. Read a short poem, perhaps the Beaver limerick or the Snowshoe Hare poem (since these animals are on the cover). Talk about how these poems “sound” as well as what they might mean. Read them with expression. Read them twice. Ask what the children may already know about these animals and their habits. At this point read the informational paragraph that goes along with the poem. You can continue browsing through the book and reading other poems that you particularly like or that the children want to hear (because they particularly like that animal).

The introductory experience should leave the children wanting to explore the book further, enjoying the poems, learning more about each animal, perhaps reading or having read a favorite poem out loud.

Related Activities:

Art:
Children of all ages like animals, especially warm, furry mammals. Make a collage from pictures of a favorite animal found in old magazines, or off the Internet. This might be the cover of a personal file folder for gathering more information about mammals. Older children may want to try their hand at acrylic paint on tag board or Masonite, the media used by Anna Hess in creating the illustrations for this book. Children can create realistic dioramas of mammal habitats using various art materials such as clay, cardboard, colored paper, and water colors. A “north woods mammal” bulletin board or corner of the room would be a good way to share the children’s artistic creations. A “mammal mobile” hanging from a light fixture in the room, created from cut-out drawings, would be an eye-catcher.

Math:
How many times faster than your heart beat is the arctic shrew’s heartbeat?
How fast can a moose run through the woods? How fast can YOU run?
How far can a jumping mouse leap when she’s in a hurry?
What other interesting facts can you find about mammal size, speed, food intake, sense of smell, distances traveled during migration?

Science:
Beaver, Bear, Snowshoe Hare can enhance any science curriculum dealing with mammals, ecology, animal behavior, adaptation, and endangered species. For example, reading “Woodland Caribou” aloud would be a good anticipatory set for a lesson on endangered species and the way human behavior can affect wildlife. “Gray Wolf” raises a number of questions about animal behavior and how scientists (ethologists) are correcting some of our misconceptions. “Black Bear” could lead to a discussion of wildlife management in national parks and wilderness areas. Whose woods is it anyway? Who are the guests and who are the intruders? And beavers that DON’T have gum disease can gnaw down trees and change habitat in ways that conflict with human settlement patterns.

Several of the poems mention diet—what these mammals eat (“Arctic Shrew,” “Star-nosed Mole,” “Hoary Bats”). What happens when the food chain gets interrupted? Predator-prey relationships are crucial for keeping nature in balance. What would happen if the Swamp Café were shut down because of wetland drainage? What would the great gray owl eat?

Discuss the scientific (Latin) names found in the mammal taxonomy at the front of the book. Why are they important to scientists around the world?

Creative Expression:
Reading Aloud, Choral Reading, Acting Out, Writing.

Below are some examples of creative expression activities to enjoy with your students and children. More ideas are included under each individual poem title in the next section.

Reading aloud is the simplest way to enjoy poetry and to develop creative expression skills. All of the poems in Beaver, Bear, Snowshoe Hare are fun to read aloud, but some are more challenging than others (for you and for your students!) Young children can choose their favorite poems to hear you read aloud. Older students can select their favorites to practice before reading aloud to you or to a larger audience. You might want to capture these presentations on video to be enjoyed later, again and again. (Planning for a performance is a good excuse, and a “real” reason, to practice.)

Shorter poems with lots of alliteration and rhyme are especially satisfying to young children. “Arctic Shrew,” “Wolverine,” “Bobcat,” “Beaver,” “Moose,” “Hoary Bats” and “Otter” are good for starters. After reading these poems to children, talk about your “technique”—why you read it the way you did (quiet, loud, fast, slow, etc.) Modeling is the best way to teach children the power of expressive oral reading. Your enjoyment and enthusiasm will be contagious, too.

Choral reading can be even more fun than reading by yourself. It is like being in a band where you get to play along with other musicians, sometimes playing a solo, sometimes resting for someone else’s solo (but always paying attention.) Choral reading takes a lot of practice, requires making decisions about who reads what and how, where to solo and where to read together—just like arranging a song for your band.

All of the poems in this collection lend themselves to choral reading. There is no “right” way to divide up a poem for a choral reading. In fact, you should try it several different ways to see what works best. An example is provided below. You and your young poets can take it from there, being as simple or elaborate as age, interest, and time allows.

S1 = Student #1 reads; S2 = Student #2 reads, etc.
S1   Arctic Shrew
S1   Come on down to the swamp café!
S2   Breakfast, lunch, dinner—we’re open all day.
S1   Centipede feet, earthworm stew,
S2   gourmet treats for an Arctic Shrew.
S1   Eat up quick and come back soon.
S2   Hungry again at half-past noon?
S1   Sip a slug shake for a picker-upper,
S1   And don’t be late
Both       for our caterpillar supper!

Some variations: You could also have a different student read each line with all joining in for the last line. With younger students, YOU can do most of the reading and have them join in at key points, like on “Arctic Shrew,” or the end rhyme of each rhyming couplet (which helps them tune into rhyming patterns, or on the entire last line).

Choral reading requires practice and paying attention, important skills to develop in many disciplines. Students can keep practicing their lines until they are happy with the way they sound, and then the choral “ensemble” can work on their timing until they are satisfied with the performance.

Writing poetry is fun, challenging, and an interesting way to learn about how written language works. Poetry is a unique form of expression; it is a way to say things that can’t be said any other way. If you become familiar and comfortable with poetry, you will greatly expand your ability to express yourself in other forms of writing as well. Poetry also pushes the boundaries of language convention and appeals to the adventurer in all of us.

The poems in this book represent different poetry forms (11 different forms in all) and can serve as models for children who want to try writing their own limericks, haiku, or pantoums. Each poetry form has special features that create certain effects and elicit certain feelings in the reader.

Writing poetry, like reading aloud, does not have to be a “solo” activity. You can lead (direct) the whole class in writing a group poem on chart paper or an overhead. Children can team up to co-author a poem. There is much literature available on the writing process and starting a writing workshop in your class. Here is a simple “scope and sequence” to follow if you are just getting started with your writing program.

Read and talk with your students about LOTS of poems, poems of all sorts. The reading and sharing of many, many poems, in ways suggested above, should precede attempts to write poetry.
Use the poems in Beaver, Bear, Snowshoe Hare and other poetry collections as models for the childrens writing. Each writer should have his or her own writing folder to keep sample poems and drafts of poems handy.
Introduce and show examples of three poetic “elements” that many poets use to create their poems: alliteration, repetition, and rhyme. You might do this in 3 separate lessons. Look for examples of each in the poems you are reading. Write a class poem with alliteration in it; write another using repetition; try another using rhyme. Remember, poems do not have to have ANY of these elements, but these are the most common and the most satisfying for young poets to work with.
Finally, remember, writing takes time. It is hard work. Be supportive. Have fun. Share early efforts. Keep finished poems in a folder. Put examples up on the bulletin boards. Fill your room with the sounds of language at play!

Below are some additional suggestions for reading, enjoying, and learning from, each poem in Beaver, Bear, Snowshoe Hare:

Arctic Shrew

Ugh! Do shrews REALLY eat that stuff? Children like “gross-out” poems and this will make kids shudder with delight. Arctic shrews really DO eat everything at the Swamp Café, and they eat all the time.

Poems need to be read several times in order to get the rhythm and emphasis just right. Don’t be surprised if your tongue slips on a number of these poems. Word play is half the fun. Try saying “Sip a slug shake for a picker-upper” five times, fast! The more expressively you read these poems, the more the children will want to hear them again and again.

What else do arctic shrews eat? What eats them? Are there arctic shrews where you live?

Wolverine

Wolverine is a “mean varmint” and the language in the poem sounds “mean.” The poet has used non-standard English because it seemed more appropriate in describing this low-down weasel. The King’s English just wouldn’t sound right.

You have to read this poem with a scowl and a growl. If your students’ eyes don’t get bigger, then you’re not putting enough “tough” in your reading.

Be sure to point out that the Latin name for wolverine, “gulo gulo,” means “glutton.”

The wolverine is the mascot for the University of Michigan’s football team. Do you think this is a good choice? Why?

Why do you think Wolverine is so mean? What are the chances that you will spot a wolverine when you walk through the woods? Would he make a good pet?

Pine Marten

Writing haiku can be great fun if you don’t get carried away with counting syllables. The true spirit of the haiku is a small, gem-like description, usually set in nature, and having a riddle-like quality. What IS that pile of bones doing under the tree? Who belongs to that little “fox face” high above?

A number of haiku collections are available on the Internet. Especially representative are haiku by Issa and Basho. A wonderful print source is the children’s book A Few Flies and I: Haiku by Issa, selected by Jean Merrill and Ronni Solbert Issa (Pantheon, 1969).

Woodland Caribou

Although not identified as such, this poem is very close to being a ballad (a poem or song narrating a story in short stanzas. Think of “Sweet Betsy from Pike” or “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.”). It lends itself to a “choral reading” with two or more readers. The poem can be divided up any number of ways. e.g., two readers could alternate lines, setting up a back-and-forth rhythm which fits the mood of the poem. The whole class could be involved, too, with some solo parts and some unison reading. (The first four stanzas could be read solo by four different students, then the whole class would read the last stanza together.) One value of choral reading is the need to PRACTICE! Going over the poem again and again, working on expression and volume, helps develop reading fluency and consolidate reading skills.

In the last stanza the poet has written “You’ll see lots of mooses.” What is the “correct” plural of moose? Why do you think the poet used “mooses” instead? (It has to do with how many “beats” are in the line to make it “sound” right, or “scan”, and poets are allowed to break the rules if they know what they’re doing and have a good reason.)

The Woodland Caribou is a close relative to the reindeer. What can you find out about them?

Bobcat

This is a quiet poem, with soft sounds, almost a whisper. (In fact, when you read this aloud, read it so softly that the audience has to “lean” toward you to hear it. This is how Bobcat listens for his prey under the snow.) This is a game of “quiet” with high stakes!

There are nine “sh” or “s” sounds in the first four lines, “shushing” sounds, setting the mood of the poem and the scene. “Hush little rabbit/ Don’t breathe little mouse!”

A good contrast to this poem is “Moose” (loud and raucous) or “Hoary Bats” (busy, busy, busy).

How would you recognize a Bobcat’s tracks in the snow?

The Bobcat’s scientific name is Lynx rufus. Have you heard of a Lynx? How is it like or different from Bobcat?

Snowshoe Hare

This poem has examples of “internal rhyme” as well as end rhyme—“wink” and “think,” “feet” and “deep.” Turning white in winter helps the snowshoe hare hide from predators like the bobcat.
Snowshoe Hare is a good leaper, but sometimes the best strategy for survival is holding still and being quiet. What are some other animals that use camouflage and protective coloration to hide from predators?

Thinhorns

There are 29—count them—voiceless “th” words in the poem, and they are all real words! Some of them are very old words that we don’t use anymore, but they make this poem fun (as well as challenging) to read aloud. Alliteration, the repetition of consonant sounds, is one way poets play with language and make poetry different from prose. Be sure to practice “Thinhorns” before reading aloud to an audience!

You might want to find other alliterative tongue-twisters like “Peter Piper” or “She sells sea shells down by the seashore.” A Rocket in My Pocket: The Rhymes and Chants of Young Americans, Carl Withers (Owlet Book, 1988) is a great resource for anyone interested in word play.

Try looking up “thrum” or “thirl” or “threap” in your dictionary. If you can’t find them, look in a bigger (unabridged) dictionary.

Beaver

Everybody loves limericks, and they are fun (but not necessarily easy) to write. Edward Lear (1812-88) popularized this verse form. See his classic A Book of Nonsense (1845). There are many collections of limericks available on the Internet. (Be careful here; many limericks are rather bawdy.)

Do marshmallows really come from a marsh? How would you find out?

Moose

This is a small poem about a huge mammal, but it has “oomph” and it moves fast. It’s an example of “syllabic verse,” a poetic form that is relatively easy and satisfying to write. The alliteration (M-M) and the four rhymes in a row add to the humor of this poem.

Moose are most unusual. They are also a popular subject for poems and picture books. Try finding other moose literature. Write your own moose poem or short story. Are you familiar with “Rocky and Bullwinkle?”

Gray Wolf

Now is a good time to pull out the original version of “Little Red Riding Hood” and do a little comparative literature study. How does the wolf in “Gray Wolf” compare to the wolf in the folk tale? Why do you think this is the case? Folk tales come from the oral tradition and from a time that predates scientific inquiry. We understand wolf behavior better today thanks to ethologists—zoologists who specialize in the study of animal behavior—both in the laboratory and in the field.

There are actually several versions of “Little Red Riding Hood.” Two of the better known are by the Grimm Brothers (Jacob and Wilhelm, 1812) and by Charles Perrault, a Frenchman who first collected folk tales into a volume entitled “Tales of Mother Goose” in 1697. In the Perrault version, Little Red and Grandmother get eaten, and the wolf goes on its way, making this truly a “cautionary tale.” The Grimm Brothers spare Grandmother and Little Red Riding Hood by bringing a nearby woodcutter to the rescue, but the wolf gets the ax.

Why do you think this story has been told in different ways down through the ages?

The scientific name canis lupus indicates the close relationship between the wolf and the dog, also canis (canine).

Star-nosed Mole

Not all mammals are cute and cuddly. The star-nosed mole is a case in point. Not a pretty face, but very well adapted for life underground in the dark, feeling around for grubs and worms.

The poem has a haunting, other-worldly sound and cadence, almost hypnotic. It is meant to be read slowly and with eyebrows raised. Creepy but valuable animals, the moles.

Perhaps you would want to read three poems to the children, under the title “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” The children can help you decide which poems to select for each part. One possible combination would be “Gray Wolf,” “Wolverine,” and “Star-nosed Mole,” respectively. Of course, no animals are innately “bad”—we’re just playing around.

What are “insectivora?” Here is another scientific name that you can explore.

Jumping Mouse

This is an example of a villanelle, a French verse form with 19 lines and some lines repeating throughout the poem. It is the most intricate pattern used in the book (with the possible exception of the sonnet), but it can yield satisfactory results for older writers who like the challenge of trying to follow the “rules” of the form. (Of course, the first “rule” of writing poetry is that it’s okay to break the rules.)

This poem literally “leaps” off the page, helped by the typography, the large “L_E_A_P”s arching into space. Poets often play around with different type styles to create the desired effects. Some poems, called “concrete poems,” are written in the shape of what they are about. Children can experiment with their own type styles for BIG and little, BOLD and fancy.

The Story of Jumping Mouse: A Native American Legend, retold and illustrated by John Steptoe (HarperCollins, 1984) would be a good follow-up and extension for anyone interested in this small forest creature.

Porcupine

A solemn poem. Poor dog. Porcupine doesn’t want trouble, but Rover is over-eager and has to learn his lesson the hard way. Getting a mouthful of quills is very painful.

Because it is a rather serious situation, the poet has chosen to write the poem in “free verse,” minimizing the use of rhyming words. The poem moves slowly, just like a porcupine. Porcupines have few natural enemies so they don’t have to hurry very much.

What makes this a poem? It doesn’t rhyme; there is no repetition; alliteration isn’t apparent. It does have other characteristics of a poem, however. It’s short. The words are arranged in lines, not sentences, on the page. It takes one event, and with a minimum of language describes it vividly. (By the way, there are some internal rhymes:⎯quills/willy-nilly, beat/retreat⎯and some near-rhyme⎯dark/barks, young/dumb.)

Hoary Bats

Mammals with wings? Yes. And hoary bats are very interesting critters. The poem flits across and down the page just like bats migrating north or south, depending on the time of year. Of course hoary bats don’t have names (as far as we know) and don’t wear hats, but the females do fly north every summer and have their babies, then rejoin the males down south before the snow flies.

Alliteration in the names and rhyming stanzas make this poem fun to read, although it takes practice to get it right. It might be fun to divide it into parts for a choral reading.

Bats are fascinating. See what you can find out about some of the hoary bat’s relatives, like the fruit bat or the vampire bat.

There are some great books about bats for children. Bats by Gail Gibbons (Holiday House, 2000) is particularly well-written.

Black Bear

If you have ever been camping with your family or a scout troop in the wilderness, you know about the possibility of a black bear visiting your campsite. In this poem the campers have done everything according to the book, but the bear still figures out a way to get the food pack down. It happens.

This is a cumulative poem, building up as each line is repeated in the next stanza. It is a common technique for longer poems and folk tales from the oral tradition because the repetition aids memory. By the time you have read the poem all the way through, you have some of the lines memorized! Some other examples of a cumulative pattern are: Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain, One Fine Day, The Fat Cat (folk tales), “The 12 Days of Christmas” (song), and “The House That Jack Built” (nursery rhyme).

On the science front, the constellation commonly known as the “Big Dipper,” which points to the north star, is also known as Ursa Major, the Great Bear. Note that “Ursus” is part of Black Bear’s (and Kodiak’s) scientific name. Historically, the Great Bear (also known as the Drinking Gourd) was a sign of freedom for slaves escaping to the North via the Underground Railway.

White-tailed Deer

There is something majestic about a large buck standing at the edge of the woods⎯and fleeting. In a blink of the eye he can disappear. Like that. The pantoum, a poetry form adapted from an 18th-Century Malay verse form, with its repetition of certain lines creates a feeling of grandeur and even an elusiveness, just like that 12-point buck.

Everyone should study the repetition pattern of the pantoum and try writing at least one poem using this style. Although it is a somewhat rare poetic form, samples can be found on the Internet.

What is your community doing to control populations of white-tailed deer in your area?

Northern Flying Squirrel

In 1867, the song “Man on the Flying Trapeze” became very popular. It was based on a circus trapeze artist by the name of Jules Leotard. The central refrain,

He’d fly through the air with the greatest of ease,
That daring young man on the flying trapeze

became widely familiar. If you know the tune, you can sing “Northern Flying Squirrel” to it.

Poetry and musical lyrics are intimately related. Many songwriters are fine poets, and many poems can easily be set to music. You might try fitting the lullaby at the end of this book to a familiar melody.

Kodiak

The Kodiak is a noble creature so it is fitting that it is written about in a sonnet, a poetic form used to deal with many grand topics such as love, death, tragedy, and loss. Here we have a young naturalist who happens upon a Kodiak fishing for salmon and lives to tell the tale.

Sonnets are not easy to write, but it is worth the effort if you have a topic big enough, and if you want to join the ranks of Edna St. Vincent Millay and William Shakespeare! Most contemporary poets have tried their hand at this classic form.

Otter

Here is a mammal that loves to have fun! The poem is fun, too, because it slips and slides just like the otters, and it plays around with the sounds of smooshing and mooshing. The repetition of the alliterative “snow-slides” also captures the otters’ repeated runs down the bank and onto the ice or into the lake.

Younger children can use simple props to act out the otters at play while the teacher reads. Cut-out otters on sticks and a sloping, curvy line drawn on the chalkboard are the only props you’ll need. Children can also shiver in the cold rain and go “kerplop” at the end of the poem.

Older students can do a dramatic readers’ theater. Five readers can sit on chairs at the front of the classroom, standing as they read their parts, all standing when reading in unison. The readers can decide how to divide up the lines. It might be fun to switch lines often and create an “up and down” motion like otters sliding down, then scampering up the river bank again.

Children can try writing a poem about their favorite mammal that captures its behavior by the sound of the words used and the pacing of the lines.

You

Just a reminder that we’re all mammals and we share some of the same behaviors. This poem might lead to a discussion about how humans are animals, how our scientific name means “wise,” and what that means when it comes to protecting the natural world that we all inhabit. As the “wise” ones, what responsibilities do we humans have toward other forms of life on our planet?

Winter’s Nap

Beaver, Bear, Snowshoe Hare begins in winter and ends in winter, going through all the seasons in between. Now it is time for hunkering down, for snuggling up, and for hibernating if you are so inclined. The final poem is a lullaby, a poem meant to be sung to young children as a way to help them go to sleep. Do you see the bear in its den? Do you see the hoary bats in the tree? (Of course not—they’ve flown to Mexico!) Snow softens the landscape, the wood stove glows orange like a sun, and I’m going to sleep under my warm goose-down comforter. Good night.

Related Literature:

The following books contain information about mammals, the north woods, poetry, or all of the above.
Antler, Bear, Canoe: A Northwoods Alphabet Year, by Betsy Bowen (Little, Brown & Co. 1991) has information about moose, black bears, snowshoe hares, beavers, gray wolf, and other critters of the north. Beautiful woodcut illustrations.
Arctic Alphabet: Exploring the North from A to Z, by Wayne Lynch (Firefly Books, 1999). Get to know some of the Arctic shrew’s relatives and neighbors—the beluga whale, caribou, fox, narwhal, polar bear, seals, walrus, voles, and lemmings, and more information on hibernation, too.
Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain: A Nandi Tale, retold by Verna Aardema, pictures by Beatriz Vidal (Scholastic, 1981), an example of a cumulative folk tale. This delightful story also explores the delicate balance of nature and how humans have tried to influence it through ritual.
The Fat Cat: A Danish folk tale, by Jack Kent (Scholastic), another example of a cumulative tale, great fun to dramatize.
The Furry Alphabet Book, by Jerry Pallotta (Trumpet, 1991). Mammals from A to Z, some of them exotic, but some are also familiar (beaver, flying squirrel, and reindeer (also called caribou).
Lucky Hares and Itchy Bears, poems by Susan Ewing, illus. by Evon Zerbetz (Alaska Northwest Books, 1996). Poems about a flying squirrel, a snowshoe hare, a moose, a bear, a caribou, and a wolf to compare with the poems in Beaver, Bear, Snowshoe Hare.
North Country Spring, by Reeve Lindbergh, paintings by Liv Sivertson (Houghton Mifflin, 1997). A beautiful, lyrical look at the north country as it wakes up in spring. At the back of the book are “Animal Notes” which give information about bats, bears, deer, foxes, mice, moose, otters, skunks, and wolves.
Song of the Water Boatman & Other Pond Poems, by Joyce Sidman, illus. by Beckie Prange (Houghton Mifflin, 2005). This delightful book is NOT about mammals, but it is put together like Beaver, Bear, Snowshoe Hare, with a poem and an informational passage about pond life. Check out “In the Depths of the Summer Pond,” a cumulative poem! “Fly, Dragonfly!” is a series of haiku. The poet also plays around with typography and the shape of her poems.
Tracks in the Wild, by Betsy Bowen (Houghton Mifflin, 1998). If you’re interested in tracking some of the mammals in Beaver, Bear, Snowshoe Hare, this is the book for you. See what the prints look like for the pine marten, snowshoe hare, river otter, beaver, gray wolf, white-tailed deer, Alces alces (that’s moose to you!), and black bear. There are also some relevant quotations in this book:
What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts soon happens to man. And,
Man did not weave the web of life. He is only a strand in it. —Chief Seattle
Turtle in July, by Marilyn Singer, illus. by Jerry Pinkney (Aladdin Books, 1989). A wonderful collection of clever poems that are fun to read, and that describe various animals at different times of the year. Some examples: “January Deer,” “March Bear” (just waking up from his long winter’s nap), and “Beavers in November” (who, like the otters, like MUD).
V is for Vanishing: An Alphabet of Endangered Animals, by Patricia Mullins (HarperCollins, 1993) Here’s what can happen if we don’t take care of our planet.
Words with Wrinkled Knees: Animal Poems, by Barbara Juster Esbensen, pictures by John Stadler (HarperCollins, 1986). These poems are very unusual and fun to read. Featured mammals include the bat, porcupine, and wolf.