Member Reviews
In "Clara's Curiosity & Her Foxy Friends", the titular protagonist is entranced by a small family of foxes living nearby. With the encouragement of the adults in her life, she learns as much as she can about their habits and lives—and I think we have a budding scientist here.
This makes for a sweet and informative book, perhaps especially got for children who are living at the intersection of city and nature. Clara is encouraged in her curiosity, but also in her respect for nature—she learns to keep a respectful distance and to satisfy at least some of her curiosity with books. The illustrations are bright and cheerful—I love Clara's rain boots, and I love that in the pictures we really see her being a kid. For the most part I like the simplicity of the writing, though I'm not so keen on the dialogue (doesn't always feel super realistic, I think), but that's a relatively small part of the book. At any rate, nice to see realistic books about kids adventuring outside and learning about the world around them.
Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
The illustrations are stunning in this nature friendly children’s book! The writing style is limerick-esque with the rhythm slightly off at times. Overall a very cute read! Happy publication!
Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my review copy!
Sweet story encouraging a child to be curious and learn, Beautiful artwork. I highly recommend this book.
In the style of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, this book is about young Clara, who looks out her window one morning to see a large gray fox in her yard. With another look, more foxes appear. “As I feel the sun warm my cheek, I turn to look again. What do I see? Oh! Two baby foxes, and the big gray fox staring at me!” The story details Clara learning more about the foxes and watching how they live in her yard. The art is beautiful, with vivid colors and a strong use of shading. Each page captures the beauty in nature. The rhyme scheme is inconsistent and only present on some pages, so when read aloud, the pace and flow are uneven. However, this book for lovers of nature and foxes continues to be engaging with more information about foxes at the end, as well as a spread available to draw and write about the animals readers see in their own back yards.
Karen Belaner-Richmond has written a picture book based on the true story of when her granddaughter Clara spied a mother fox and her two babies in her backyard. Armed with binoculars and a notebook she spent her days watching the kit grow This story is made even more charming by the illustrations created by Clara's father, Paul Mathews.. The afterward includes a chart of pawprints to help out any youngster on a nature hike and a page full of facts about the Maine gray fox followed by two pages for the reader to write and draw about thei own nature experiences. Richmond is planning on writing a series about Clara's nature adventures and I look forward to reading the next book. This story will appeal to any nature loving youngster. I recommend it for families with youngsters, libraries and classrooms. Teachers could use this book as a launchpad for a nature study lesson.
I read an electronic reader copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own.
First I want to say thank you to NetGalley and the publisher's at Amplify for allowing me to read an ARC of this book!
I read this and immediately thought about how much fun this book would be in a classroom over a week and interacting with the students. This was thought provoking for children and gave a way to discuss while reading. I will defiantly be grabbing a copy for my classroom!
I liked this because it shows how you can use different ways to answer your own questions when you're curious about something. Clara sees some foxes outside, so her parents go out with her to look. They let her use binoculars to see better without invading the foxes' space. Clara also keeps a journal on what she's learning and gets more information at the library. The end of the book shows what animals make different kinds of tracks and provides space for kids to draw their own picture and write a journal entry.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this
A reasonable young read, about a girl who spots a small family of grey foxes living close to her family home, and is encouraged – through gifts of notebooks, binoculars, common sense – to see and keep watch over what happens as the babies grow up. What I liked was the gentle lesson that we can all engage with nature, given the right circumstance (ie we can't all do it, for sure, but this is fiction – and based on real people and real foxes). What I didn't like was the way the text was prose and yet still tried its best to rhyme – too much with see sounds to start, then others joining in as we progressed. It also tried too hard to establish itself as the first book in a series of such small adventures, when I'd certainly need to see a second in the franchise to check if that was actually deserved. For now there's little that's bad about this, but nothing outstanding. Three and a half stars.
This was fun to incorporate studying and having fun while doing it! Clara's Curiosity is a great name!! The illustrations are very pretty in this book!
3.5 ⭐️
I absolutely thought the pictures in this book were absolutely beautiful. And not in a "only adults can appreciate these pictures" which happens in a lot of children's books. My 6 yr old daughter appreciated the pictures. The story was nice and I appreciated the "What did I see?" prompts throughout the story bc it gave my daughter a chance to interact with the book. However, the story was a bit long. There were several times, especially in the middle, where my daughter (and I if we're being honest) lost interest. However, where the story lost us, the illustrations kept us engaged.
Overall, this book a very okay. I would not necessarily recommend it to a friend, but I didn't not like it either.
This is so sweet!! The illustrations are gorgeous and the story really gets kids involved in learning about nature around them!
This is a really cute children's book about exploring wildlife safely and bonding with family while doing so.
This is a great book for kids that are really into camping, nature, and have curiosity about their surroundings and want to explore.
The art is precious and I was blown away on a few pages by the colors and attention to detail.
Thank you Net Gallery for the ARC! This was provided to me for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.