This book could be used as an independent read for a 3rd-grade class. 3rd graders would enjoy the colorful pictures and fun bird and insect information. It is a good level for them and they would thoroughly enjoy the book.

I liked how this book had the unfamiliar words, or academic text, in bold. Like the word elytra, thermals, and paleontologists and had the definition of the word following it. One of the words, elytra, even had arrows pointing to the ladybugs wings to further illustrate what it was. I liked how the illustrations had the one beetle off to the side on display and then had many other ladybugs crawling in the flowers. I also liked how many of the descriptions of the animals with wings included why or how the animal benefits people like that bats eat mosquitoes. I liked how the illustrations helped to portray meaning like the illustrated air currents created by a hummingbird and the red arrows drawn in and around the wings to show how the bird created lift with its wings. The theme of the book was to inform the reader about a variety of insects and animals that all have wings, to show how they are the same and how they are different. ( )

I really enjoyed this book for a few reasons. First, the illustrations were fantastic. They were bright, colorful, and extremely detailed. Some of the pictures were labeled to identify the parts of the animal or insect. Second, this book was nonfiction and very organized. The book gave examples of certain types of animals/insects that have wings and gave a short description of each such as a Galahs bird, a Gambian Epaulette Fruit Bat and a Bee Hummingbird. Next, the book went into different styles of wings such as large, small, and brightly colored or no color at all. Because all of the illustrations are bright and detailed, they engage the reader. There are diagrams throughout the book to explain how the wings of animals move and which direction they move in. There are also maps to illustrate where certain birds fly during the winter. To my knowledge, all of these facts about the wings of different animals should be accurate because it’s an informational text. Young children and even adults can learn a lot about wings from this book. The overall big idea of this book is to inform readers about the differences of wing shapes, sizes, colors are more of different animals/insects. ( )

This book of all things with wings was very nicely done. There was a simple lyrical text of headings about various winged animals and went into particular detail about animals that could be described by a particular phrase on each particular page. ( )