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Overview
It is another hot day in the desert. Birds and other animals scurry about looking for food. When they get tired, they stop to rest at a giant cactus. It is their hotel in the desert!
Parents' Choice Award IRA-CBC Teachers' Choice An NSTA-CBC Outstanding Science Trade Book An NCTE Notable Trade Book in the Language Arts
Describes the life cycle of the giant saguaro cactus, with an emphasis on its role as a home for other desert dwellers.
Synopsis
It is another hot day in the desert. Birds and other animals scurry about looking for food. When they get tired they stop to rest at a giant cactus. It is their hotel in the desert!
Many different animals live in the cactus hotel. It protects them; and they protect it, by eating the pests that could harm the cactus.
The cactus grows larger and larger and will live for about two hundred years. When one animal moves out, another moves in. There is never a vacancy in the cactus hotel.
This story—about a desert, a giant cactus, and the animals who live in it—is one that even the youngest child will understand and enjoy.
Publishers Weekly
The intriguing life cycle of the saguaro cactus and the complex web of life that characterizes the North American Sonoran desert is effectively explored in this involving picture book. Guiberson's text captures the reader with its steady pace and often delightful echoes of cumulative nursery tales. She weaves an amazingly large range of facts into this simple story of a fragile ecosystem, and helps children comprehend just how much plants and animals depend upon one another for their survival. Lloyd's ( The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything ) paintings evoke the desert landscape with their pastel-shaded palette, changing point of view and finely rendered scenes of native flora and fauna. Best used as a read-aloud, this is a fine prequel to Barbara Bash's more extensive and detailed Desert Giant . Ages 4-8. (May)
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The saguaro cactus is born when a seed is dropped in the shade of a tree. In the one hundred fifty years it takes to reach its full height, it becomes a "hotel" for desert wildlife. when it is two hundred years old, the fifty foot cactus topples and supplies shelter for ground dwellers. Guiberson has a talent for writing factual picture books that read like stories, and the vivid, colorful pictures bring this fascinating topic to life.From the Publisher
"A fascinating look at the life cycle of the giant saguaro cactus and its place in the desert ecosystem."--Booklist
"Guiberson weaves an amazingly large range of facts into this simple story of a fragile ecosystem."--Publishers Weekly