The overall theme and message of this book is that fires are neither good or bad, they are a necessity for nature's cycle of life and growth. The book went on to explain why fires are good for nature and how forest rangers even start small fires in order to prevent large ones from happening. ( )

I liked about this book after reading it. I enjoyed the illustrations or in this case, the photographs. I loved that they were able to really show what wildfires look like and show what they can do to the earth. Since mostly all people hear about is how horrible wildfires are, it is kind of cool to see that even in the destruction there is some form of beauty that comes out of the land getting a fresh start. I also really liked the writing in this book, since it did get a little boring after reading the book for awhile, but I loved that the author wanted to make a point that wildfires are not just about ruining everything that it meets, and that it is natural to have them since it actually helps the earth at restarting the growth process of the native plants that grow there. I think the main point of this book was to inform not only children but people in general about what they don't hear about wildfires. ( )

Seymour Simon does a great job of clarifying some misconceptions about wildfires. I myself learned some very interesting new facts about wildfires. The writing was factual, but he used strong verbs to make the facts more interesting to the reader. He even used some metaphors throughout to help the reader better visualize what he was describing. I loved the use of photographs in this book. ( )

"Wildfires" is a informational book about the 1988 Yellow Stone National park wildfire. It gives a great background on what a wildfire is and how it can be beneficial and how it is not. Although this concept may be difficult to address Simon Seymour used crafty ways to make it an easy connection. For example, he refers to smokey the Bear when explaining that some wildfires occur naturally and intentionally. This enables the reader to reflect on prior knowledge and to think about other content areas this information can be applied to. This is an good addition to the classroom.