Snakes Live in Grass

Snakes Live in Grass by Melving and Gilda Berger is an informational text that is a part of the Scholastic Readers: Time-to-Discover series. Each page has a similar layout of a rectangular photograph framed by a thinned colored border and one sentence of text. The first page is the same as the title, "Snakes live in grass." After that there is a pattern for each two-page spread. The left hand side says, "Snakes live in ____________", listing areas such as forests, deserts, near water, and under rocks. Then the right hand side is a sentence relevant to the specific place. Each two page spread also has an oval fun fact on top of one of the photographs. The last page is a stand alone page, similar to the right hand pages in the rest of the text, providing one more bit of information about snakes.

There is a lot that I like about the format of this book for emergent readers. The photographs are interesting and could prompt a lot of discussion about what readers notice and wonder. All of the text is in a large font and each page is limited to one sentence, with the exception of the fun facts pages that have one additional sentence. The left hand pages provide a pattern for kids to gain familiarity, but the left hand pages and fun facts add a layer of authenticity, rather than strictly following the pattern throughout the whole book. It seems like this series offers an engaging, comfortable way to start engaging in informational texts. You can read more about the other science related books in the series here.