Review: Little Skink’s Tail

Posted by Karin | 0 comments

Little Skink’s Tail by Janet Halfmann (Sylvan Dell Publishing; 2007) is a delightful story about a skink who finds herself being attacked by a hungry crow one day. Lucky for her she has a special trick that she can use to protect herself from would be predators. In a blink of an eye she snaps off her tail and scurries away leaving the crow to chase her wiggly wobbly tail! Although glad to have eluded danger, the next morning Little Skink is sad because she misses her bright blue tail. Without a tail of her own she begins to imagine what life would be like if she had the tail of some other forest creatures. In the end she realizes that while the other tails are beautiful on the other animals, her tail is really the best for her, which is of course a wonderful lesson on accepting how God created you.

In my opinion Little Skink’s Tail is a homeschool mother’s dream picture book. The story on its own is of course entertaining and carries a good message, but there is so much more to this picture book. The illustrations are well done and each page not only helps to illustrate the story but also shares in detail what can be found in Little Skink’s natural habitats such as the shelf mushrooms growing on the decaying log and other animals found with Little Skink in the forest.

Like all Sylvan Dell Publishing books there is a lesson plan in the back of the book—-a homeschool mother’s dream, you don’t have to worry about making up your own! In Little Skink’s Tail there is a footprint map where children learn to identify the footprints of a Deer, Turtle, Squirrel, Owl, Rabbit, and Porcupine as well as offering practice on reading a map. There is also a tail matching activity where children are asked to identify an animal based on a illustration of its tail.

A preview of the book is available here.

See also, Wild Tracks: A Guide to Nature’s Footprints if your child enjoys the footprint activity.