What's Alive?

How to tell the difference between living and nonliving things—an essential first skill in scientific sorting and classifying—is explored with hands-on activities and colorful diagrams.

Best Children's Science Book List 1995 (S)

How to tell the difference between living and nonliving things—an essential first skill in scientific sorting and classifying—is explored with hands-on activities and colorful diagrams.

Best Children’s Science Book List 1995 (S)

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 2A simple and direct concept book that enables children to differentiate between living and inanimate things. Reader involvement is assured by a question-and-answer introduction that asks youngsters to consider how they are like a cat, a flower, or a bird. She urges children to draw pictures of everything they see on a walk and then to sort them into living and nonliving groups. Death is presented as part of life. Wescott's characteristically cheerful and lively illustrations depict a girl involved in a variety of activities, with interested cats and dog looking on. Their activity contrasts with the girl's doll, which is also present but can't move or express itself. A solid addition for classrooms and recreational reading.Louise L. Sherman, Anna C. Scott School, Leonia, NJ

Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld's books include Did Dinosaurs Have Feathers?, Terrible Tyrannosaurs, and Dinosaur Babies, which School Library Journal said "will be welcomed with deserved delight by young dinophiles." She has also written Dinosaur Parents, Dinosaur Young, an ALA Notable Book. Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld lives in Berkeley, California.