Melissa Stewart
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Can an Aardvark Bark?

Can an Aardvark Bark?

by Melis­sa Stewart

illus by Steve Jenk­ins

Beach Lane Books /
Simon & Schus­ter, 2017

for ages 5–9

ISBN 978–1‑48145–852‑8

Pur­chase this book at your local inde­pen­dent book­seller or Amazon.com.

Barks, grunts, squeals—animals make all kinds of sounds to com­mu­ni­cate. With a growl­ing sala­man­der and a whin­ing por­cu­pine, bel­low­ing giraffes and laugh­ing goril­las, this bois­ter­ous book is chock-full of fun and inter­est­ing facts and is sure to be a favorite of even the youngest ani­mal enthusiasts.

Honors and Awards

  • Coop­er­a­tive Chil­dren’s Book Cen­ter Choic­es List
  • Cybils Award Nominee
  • Nation­al Sci­ence Teach­ers Association-Children’s Book Coun­cil Out­stand­ing Sci­ence Trade Book
  • Nerdy Book Club Award for Non­fic­tion Pic­ture Books
  • Penn­syl­va­nia Key­stone to Read­ing mas­ter list 2018–2019
  • Read On Wis­con­sin Book
  • Young Hoosier Book Award Nominee

Reviews

  “Stew­art always choos­es appeal­ing facts, but what makes this col­lec­tion work so well is the skill­ful pre­sen­ta­tion by both author and illus­tra­tor … Don’t share this engag­ing read-aloud in a qui­et library.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

  “… an inge­nious, play­ful twist on the pre­dictable ani­mal-noise theme with ter­rif­i­cal­ly engag­ing results.” (Shelf Aware­ness, starred review)

“Using a ques­tion-and-answer for­mat that employs inter­nal rhymes, Stew­art and Jenk­ins enlight­en read­ers about ani­mal utter­ances. … Tod­dlers will enjoy the large-print Q&As, while old­er chil­dren will appre­ci­ate the infor­ma­tive para­graphs pre­sent­ed in small­er font. And while there’s much to be gleaned about famil­iar and eso­teric species (who knew a giraffe could bel­low?), the final spread, encour­ag­ing lis­ten­ers to let loose their own laughs, grunts, bel­lows, and growls, pro­vides the per­fect excuse for tod­dler par­tic­i­pa­tion.” (Book­list)

“A ter­rif­ic title for ele­men­tary-aged kids to help them draw com­par­isons between ani­mals and sounds — libraries can’t go wrong.” (School Library Jour­nal)

“… a hand­some and dynam­ic explo­ration of ani­mal behav­ior.” (Pub­lish­ers Week­ly)

“Bark, grunt, squeal, roar … A cho­rus of ani­mal vocal­iza­tions emanates from sci­ence writer Melis­sa Stewart’s lat­est pic­ture book, a con­cept book focus­ing on the sounds that ani­mals use to com­mu­ni­cate. Employ­ing a ques­tion and answer for­mat, Stew­art uses inter­nal rhyme to pique the inter­est of young read­ers … An excel­lent resource for units of study on ani­mals and/or com­mu­ni­ca­tion, the title is also an excel­lent resource for lan­guage arts instruc­tion, as a men­tor text for non­fic­tion text struc­tures and lan­guage play.” (The Class­room Book­shelf)

“Fas­ci­nat­ing facts, stun­ning illus­tra­tions, and a great pat­tern to the text. Loved it.” (Dylan Teut, Instruc­tor of Lit­er­a­cy and Plum Creek Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­cy Fes­ti­val Direc­tor, Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­si­ty, Seward, Nebraska)

“Ani­mal sounds get a smart and fun take with a dream team that explores the sounds ani­mals make — and the rea­sons why.” (Teacher Mag­a­zine)

Behind the Book

“Dur­ing a 2010 trip to Dis­ney World, my fam­i­ly and I were sur­prised to learn that lit­tle mon­keys called cot­ton-top tamarins can bark.

“That night my 10-year-old nephew asked a great ques­tion: ‘Do you think there are a lot of dif­fer­ent ani­mals that bark?’ With the help of Google, we start­ed mak­ing a list. It turns out that not only do lots of dif­fer­ent ani­mals bark, they do so for many dif­fer­ent reasons.

“I kept our list, and when I got home, I began research­ing oth­er ani­mal sounds. Even­tu­al­ly, I had a list of more than 300 ani­mals that bark, bel­low, chirp, chat­ter, grunt, growl, and more. That’s when I knew I had the mak­ings of a book.”

Can an Aardvark Bark?

by Melis­sa Stewart

illus by Steve Jenk­ins

Beach Lane Books /
Simon & Schus­ter, 2017

for ages 5–9

ISBN 978–1‑48145–852‑8

Pur­chase this book at your local inde­pen­dent book­seller or Amazon.com.

Timeline Searching for Text Structure

Book Extensions

CURRICULUM GUIDE
READ ALOUD GUIDE
TEXT STRUCTURE SWAP 1
TEXT STRUCTURE SWAP 2

BookTrailer

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