The Continents

Children's Literature

Part of the "Spyglass Book" series, this entry focuses on the continents. The book opens with a map of the world showing the locations of the seven continents. Author Waters continues on to introduce the reader to each of the continents, a description of the continent's location, and interesting facts and pictures of certain aspects of the continent's landscape, vegetation, culture or history. Waters also introduces children to the fact that millions of years ago the continents were one big land mass. As a classroom book, it links in well with both science and social studies. Developmentally, it would be more appropriate to introduce the continents either alphabetically or according to size. As it stands, there is no logical sequence to the way the continents are presented. New vocabulary words appear in bold the first time they are mentioned, which can be helpful when building vocabulary. Like other books in this series this book is complete with a table of contents, a glossary and an index. Children are also given Web sites and the names of other books to learn more about this topic. The print is large and suitable for early readers. Each page is filled with a variety of colorful illustrations that range from drawings and maps to photographs. In addition to the illustrations, there are also fun facts included on most of the pages. 2003, Compass Point Books, Ages 4 to 7.
— Cara Mulcahy