Books about Animals
There are many great books about animals - and reading about animals is lots of fun. Here are some books we recommend. We're adding to it all the time, so keep checking back. If you know of other books to recommend, please let us know.
These books were recommended in our current issue of AnimalWise:
In Flanders Fields by Norman Jorgensen
Being Caribou by Karsten Heuer
The Boy Who Loved All Living Things: The Imaginary Childhood Journal of Albert Schweitzer by Sheila Hamanaka
In Flanders Fields
by Norman Jorgensen
On a World War I battlefield, a young soldier risks his life to rescue a robin caught in barbed wire separating enemy lines. His courageous act dramatically affects not just the robin, but all who witnessed it. This fable provides an opportunity to discuss the realities of war, the meaning of sacrifice and how an act of kindness to animals can raise the spirits of people. This short picture book is suitable for upper elementary to junior high grades.
Discussion Questions:
- Why do most of the letters and parcels meant for soldiers have to be returned to the mail sack?
- Why does the soldier wave a white flag in the middle of the battlefield?
- The book is titled after a famous poem. What is the poem about?
- Would you do something courageous for something you strongly believe in?
- In the story, the soldier is a humane hero for helping the robin. Have you or anyone you know done something kind to help an animal?
- Was the soldier brave or foolish to risk his life for the bird?
- What effect did his act have on those who witnessed it?
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Being Caribou
by Karsten Heuer
Two tellings of this 2003 epic journey through the wild country straddling the Canada-Alaska border by newlywed Albertans Karsten Heuer and Leanne Allison will appeal to younger readers and teens.
Being Caribou: Five Months on Foot with a Caribou Herd is a 48-page picture book suitable for upper elementary or early junior high students. It documents the physical hardships, unexpected dangers and wondrous discoveries they encountered as they followed the 100,000 caribou over 1500 km on their annual trek to safe (but environmentally threatened) calving grounds by the Beaufort Sea.
Being Caribou: Five Months on Foot with an Arctic Herd extends the narrative over 235 pages that delve more deeply into the authors’ motivations, physical and emotional tribulations, and the internal changes brought about as they had to move, act and think like caribou in order to keep up with the herd. This book would be appropriate for advanced junior high and senior high students.
Discussion Questions:
- Why did the authors think it was important to trek alongside the animals and film their migration?
- What early influences helped prepare the authors for the journey?
- What did Randall mean when he said that if he didn’t hunt, he would lose his way in life?
- Karsten was skeptical when Randall told him that in the past, “people could talk to caribou and caribou could talk to people.” How did his opinion change after his experience?
- What did the caribou do to escape from wolves?
- What adaptations do the caribou have to help them through the snow and cold?
- Why must the caribou travel to the coastal plain to give birth? What do you think would happen to the caribou if that land wasn’t available to them?
- How did living with the caribou, away from city noise, change the authors?
Enrichment: Find out more about the trip and the caribou migration at www.necessaryjourneys.ca/beingcaribou.
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The Boy Who Loved All Living Things: The Imaginary Childhood Journal of Albert Schweitzer
by Sheila Hamanaka
The early life of humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Albert Schweitzer is told through the imaginative format of journal entries he might have written as a young boy growing up in the late nineteenth-century. In a simple, first-hand account, we see the early influences that helped develop his “reverence for life” philosophy. This short (28-page) illustrated journal is suitable for upper elementary students, or as a read-aloud book for younger students. The Alberta SPCA has a limited supply of these books that we will send to your school library free of charge. See the form at albertaspca.org/teachers.
Discussion Questions:
- Do you think animals can be your friends?
- Do you ever make fun of the clothes that other kids are wearing? How would it make you feel if someone made fun of you?
- Why do you think some people are mean to animals?
- What could you do if you saw someone hurting an animal?
- What would you do if a friend asked you to throw rocks at birds?
- What’s more important: what others think of you, or what you think of yourself?
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