I liked this book for many reasons. First, the book was very well written and thought out. This book discussed the kinds of homes that many different animals have, including spiders, alligators, fish, termites, and many more. The author found unique ways to begin each chapter for each animal. One method she used was proposing a question to the reader. As an example, the chapter "The Old Swimming Hole" began with "What animal is big, black, scaly, and has its own swimming hole? Give up? The answer is the American alligator." Another method the author used to begin each chapter was by starting off with an "attention-grabbing sentence" that left the reader wanting to know more. I felt this way at the beginning of "A Fussy Shopper" when the chapter began with "A hermit crab is a funny-looking animal. It runs around with another animal's shell on its back!". This left me wanting to know more, and I'm sure children would feel the same.

Another reason that I enjoyed this book was because of the choice of animals the author discussed. The animals discussed were of all kinds. Some animals were big, like the American alligator, where other animals were small, like the mound-building termite. Some animals lived in trees like the social weaverbirds, where others lived in the ocean, like the hermit crab or labyrinth fish. The animals chosen were animals that most children had probably heard about before, yet they know very little.

The main idea of this book was to provide an informational text to children about the variety of habitats (homes) that different animals have. Many of these animals were not taught or instructed how to build their homes, but rather they are born with this knowledge. These animals are very creative when it comes to building their homes, and this book gives the reader new knowledge not only about their home building process, but also about how intelligent animals can be. ( )

I really enjoyed reading this book, for a few reasons. First off, I learned a lot of information that I did not know prior. Being a non-fictional book, "Animals Build Amazing Homes" informs the reader of all the different kinds of homes that a wide variety of animals have. Animals from the African mound-builder termites, who create their home with the help of thousands of other termites. Using sand, soil, and saliva, they build up large mounds that look like castles, which they call home. Another interesting home that the book mentions if called "the trap". When people think of spiders, they think of spiders constructing webs to live and catch their prey. Not this spider. Not the trap-door spider.

Another reason that I thought this was a good read was that although it is not a "picture book", it does have many illustrations to describe the text. The illustrations are well drawn and match exactly what the text is describing. I believe that this book would still be an effective learning tool without the words, due to how well the illustrations are and how frequent

A third reason that I enjoyed this book was simply that it was interesting. The author used good detail and descriptive words in the text. Through this method, the reader can grasp a good concept of exactly what the author is wanting you to think. The author even uses metaphors and similes in her writing. As an example on page 40, when describing how a hermit crab decides which shell to make its home, the author writes "the crab acts just like a fussy shopper!".

This book was a good read, and it was very informational. For any student that has an interest in a variety of animals, this book would definitely be a recommendation of mine.

I liked this book for a couple of reasons. The first reason being that though the book is not considered to be a picture book, there are plenty of illustrations that gave me a clear picture of the types of homes that the animals reside in. The book is very informative. As I read about the different types of homes of various animals, I learned things that I didn’t know; such as the hermit crab doesn’t have its own shell house but uses shells from dead animals who are no longer in use of their shell. The book also did a good job in being sure that I was able to pronounce words that may have been unfamiliar to me and understand what they meant. For instance the word saliva, it put another name for saliva in parenthesis (spit) and for the word larvae it put how the word would be pronounced in parenthesis (LAR-vee) and described what larvae is. This book used words that were very descriptive and made me want to keep turning the pages to find out about more animal homes. The big idea of this book is that different animals make and find homes in different ways. ( )

“Animals Build Amazing Homes” informs students of all the different types of ways animals build homes. This book illustrates the intelligence of animals and also the unity of many animals. The book allows children to think of animals in a different perspective. Many of these animals have never been instructed or taught how to build their homes, but rather are born with that knowledge. All animals have creative ways to build homes. This book gives the reader more respect for animals because of all the creative ways they build homes and how intelligent they truly are. ( )