It is not a book I would take to the lake to help me identify frogs.  It is almost like a cross between a field guide and a coffee table book because the photos are so beautiful.

It has a CD at the back of the book.  It tells you each kind of frog in the book with the sound it makes.  That helps you identify frogs by their noises.  Some species look very similar, but can be told apart by their song.  Also when you go out at night, you cannot always see the frogs around you but if you know their songs, you can identify them by that.

My favorite part of the book is the pictures.

We have found four of the kinds of frogs in the book: the bullfrog, the leopard frog, the Cope’s gray tree frog and the woodland toad.

This book is about a wood thrush named Flute.  He got his name from children hearing his chirp that they thought sounded like a flute.  In the book Flute migrates to Costa Rica and then back to his home in Maryland.  The author also adds exciting and interesting details about Flute’s life.  Anyone who likes birds would like this book!

During the movie, we see this same bird a few times. The piece of the net reminds us that people can take care of  wild animals and hurt them at the same time.  The person who left the fishing net did not mean to hurt the bird.  Many birds are hurt unintentionally by humans. They get hit by cars, caught in nets, caught by dogs and cats, or harmed by pollution.  On the other hand, people set aside land for wildlife sanctuaries, clean birds after oil spills and do other things to help birds.

The movie shows many kinds of migrating birds, including pelicans, penguins, geese, ducks and swans in many different habitats.  Sometimes you see the birds far away and sometimes very close up.  I thought the photography was pretty cool, especially with the different backgrounds.  They used trained birds they had raised themselves to get these shots.  They wanted the birds to get used to the engine noise and the cameras so they could get close shots.  Then they boxed up the birds and shipped them to the places to film.

It took the film makers four years of travel, 400 km of film and 240 hours of screen time to make a movie that ended up 89 minutes long.  In fact, it could take two months to get the footage they needed for just one minute of the final movie!

The movie was really neat.  I especially liked the parts when they filmed in the sky.  In some parts, you almost feel like you are flying with the birds.  I also like the part where they showed the horses stampeding.  At the end, you see the goose with the fish net again as it comes back to the stream.  You see the boy, too.  You know they are back home until the next migration.

Galileo’s Journal by Jeanne Pettenati is a fictional book written as if it were Galileo’s real journal.  The events really happened.

During this time, Galileo made lots of discoveries.  He heard rumors about a spyglass that made far away things seem bigger. He made one himself and used it to look at the sky. He saw many things no one had seen before. It was a really exciting time.

I really like this book and recommend it for anyone who would like to read about Galileo.

DK Smithsonian’s Stargazer by Ben Morgan is part field guide and part experiment book. At 8 x 6 inches and 72 pages it is the perfect size for little hands. Stargazer is full of projects, diagrams, pictures, and information. The cover flaps are made of sturdy tag board and display 88 constellations for quick reference on starry nights.

Some of the things I learned were how to measure distance with my hand and how centrifugal force makes Saturn the flattest planet in our solar system. Some of the projects that interested me were making homemade moon craters, a sundial, drawing orbits, and a two stage rocket. There are over 30 projects in this book.

I really like that Stargazer has a lot of projects and experiments. It is also has great pictures and diagrams like star charts and latitude locators. It is also nice that is contains constellations of the Southern Hemisphere. Not all star books do that.

I wish Stargazer had included more information about how the constellations received their names. I really want to know why the Big Dipper and Little Dipper are not considered constellations but rather are part of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. I guess it is good because now I want to hunt up that information. Be warned this book also has a few references to millions and billions of years ago.

This is a great book for children (ages 6-12) who like to learn about space, especially if they like to learn by doing simple projects.