Python

by Christopher Cheng, Mark Jackson (Illustrator)

Overview

“This attractive and readable book is an excellent introduction to informational literature and to a fascinating creature.” — School Library Journal


Python stirs and slithers out from her shelter, smelling the air with her forked tongue. It’s time to molt her dull scales and reveal the glistening snake underneath. Gliding along a tree, the hungry python stalks her prey. Combining informative facts, expressive illustrations, and a lyrical, mesmerizing narrative, this book will captivate anyone fascinated by this iconic creature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781536221633
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	04/06/2021
Series:	Read and Wonder
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	23 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Christopher Cheng established the Zoomobile and taught at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia, and now is a full-time author of children’s books. He lives in Australia.


Mark Jackson has illustrated numerous picture books, including The Truth About Penguins by Meg McKinlay. He lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Editorial Reviews

A day in the life of a blue and yellow diamond python unfurls in the Australian bush. Jackson’s hazy illustrations depict a female python as she wakes in the morning, molts, hunts for food (an unlucky rat), and returns to her nest to guard her eggs. Cheng’s narrative is straightforward but visually descriptive (“Her scales are dull. Her eye scales are cloudy. Her body has no more room to grow inside her old scaly covering. It’s time to molt”), and general facts about pythons are tucked elsewhere into the spreads (“Many pythons have pits just under their lips. These are sensors that help them detect warm-blooded animals”). While snake enthusiasts are a natural audience, an afterword challenges negative preconceptions, noting that female pythons are “wonderful mothers” and that snakes “aren’t slimy.” Ages 5–8. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

An attractive, matter-of-fact picture book on a topic of interest to many young children.
—Booklist

This attractive and readable book is an excellent introduction to informational literature and to a fascinating creature.
—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

K-Gr 2—Written as a narrative about one female snake-Python-this brief introduction to the species offers basic information such as how and what she eats; how she keeps warm; scales and molting; and incubation and hatching of eggs. Two to six sentences of text and a related fact or two appear on each double-page illustration. For example, on the spread about molting, the accompanying facts state: "Python's sleek scales are made of keratin-just like human fingernails. Snakes don't have eyelids, so they can't blink. Their eyes are covered by a single scale." Jackson's carefully composed, mixed-media illustrations, heavily detailed in rust-colored pencil, have an open, sketchy look that attractively and effectively shows the large snake in its habitat-the Australian bush. The artist shows it twining around tree branches; warming itself on a sunny rock; and hunting small prey from a coiled position in the wild grass. A paragraph of information about pythons and an index of key words in the text are appended. This attractive and readable book is an excellent introduction to informational literature and to a fascinating creature.—Susan Scheps, formerly at Shaker Heights Public Library, OH

School Library Journal

A strangely uninformative look at a python's life and life cycle. A python (identified in the closing note as an Australian diamond python) slithers from shelter to bask in the sun, shed her skin and nab a rat (after missing a bird). Suddenly eggs appear, as if from nowhere. The python conscientiously incubates them until they begin to hatch, then abruptly departs to let her offspring "start their own lives of smelling, resting, watching…and waiting." The earnest narrative is accompanied on each spread by additional details in an insufficiently different typeface. Cheng slides past any direct mention of death ("When the rat can no longer breathe, dinner is ready"), drops in a vague reference to unidentified egg "predators" and presents at best a sketchy overview of snake anatomy. Readers wondering how pythons get around, how those eggs came to be fertilized or laid, and like questions will find no answers here--either in the text or in Jackson's muddy, indistinct painted illustrations. Not even the relatively lengthy afterword can fill all the holes in this superficial, less-than-compelling profile. (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews