Who Needs a Prairie?: A Grassland Ecosystem

by Karen Patkau

Overview

Karen Patkau takes readers on an amazing voyage of discovery to find out

   • How wild and rugged prairies become grasslands 
   • Why prairie inhabitants depend on each other and their surroundings 
   • What wildlife and plants thrive in large open spaces 
   • How seasons and weather conditions affect life on the prairies 
   • How fire restores the land 
   • What life is like on the Great Plains 
   • How a food chain forms 
   • How some prairie plants protect the land 
   • Why we need prairies

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770493889
Publisher:	Tundra
Publication date:	09/09/2014
Series:	Ecosystem Series
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

Karen Patkau is the award-winning author and illustrator of many books for children. Creatures Great and Small, which she wrote and illustrated, was a Shining Willow Nominee 2008 and a Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice 2007 book. The companion book, Creatures Yesterday and Today, was on the Book Sense Summer 2008 Children's Pick List. Both titles were Resource Links Best of the Years selections. The first three books in Karen's Ecosystem Series - Who Needs a Jungle? Who Needs a Swamp? Who Needs an Iceberg? - were published to much critical acclaim. Who Needs a Swamp? received a Silver Birch Express 2013 nomination and was a Green Book Festival 2012 Honor Book. Who Needs and Iceberg? was a Green Book Festival 2013 Honor Book. Who Needs a Jungle? was chosen for the Canadian Children's Book Centre Best Books for Kids & Teens 2012.

Editorial Reviews

PRAISE FOR Ecosystem Series:

"Patkau introduces readers to the North American Arctic ecosystem efficiently and methodically, discussing habitat, the food chain and seasonal changes, along with the ever-important formation of the iceberg.... Her digitally composed illustrations at times offer informative scenic views, and at times, present readers with more direct scientific information. This, as well as its companion volumes Who Needs a Swamp? and Who Needs a Jungle? offers a clear, readable introduction for budding naturalists and geographers." - The Toronto Star

"...Patkau offers a series of vibrant scenes ... striking illustrations. The text both interprets the visual content ... and offers paragraphs of diverse facts." - Booklist

From the Publisher

11/01/2014
Gr 1–3—"We all do" is the given answer to the titular question in each of these mediocre additions to a 2012 series. Like the three preceding volumes, each surveys a particular biome with a combination of simple observations and painted landscape (or aquatic) scenes. Along with muddy, low contrast colors, the busy illustrations have a flattened look, as if images of wildlife are laid down over generic backgrounds. Not until a note under the map at the end of each volume are readers informed that they have gotten not a general worldwide overview but a profile of a particular desert, reef, or prairie. Moreover, closing galleries of previously introduced flora and fauna supply additional facts but are disconnected from the preceding contents, as the volumes are unpaged.

School Library Journal

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