6 copies

The book contained information about the deadliest things on the planet. Some were very surprising to me. Others made me want to flip the page because they were terrifying. The information was laid out very nicely and it actually read like a fiction book, which made the reading experience so much more enjoyable.

The pictures were essential; otherwise, the facts would not have registered. It would make no sense to learn about which snakes are poisonous if you are not able to identify them. This book would help the reader learn facts about the creature and be able to identify it.
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This book contains numerous examples of death caused by a variety of means. The pictures are colorful and the info-graphics are full of helpful information. I think that this book would be fantastic for younger children. The information isn't difficult to understand and could be useful as supplemental material. ( )

1. This book falls under the nonfiction catagory as an Identification Guide. I would not say that it is a field guide because not enough technical information is provided and the categories of information are too broad for one to use in any single region. This book does not display a design that it is valuable to take out into the field.
The format is generally consistent throughout the book. Many of the pages have additional yellow and blue boxes that contain extra information about the animal or phenomenon described. The yellow boxes demonstrate the author’s interpretation of how deadly something is. The scale ranges from 1 skull, which represents “Not actually that deadly,” to 5 skulls, which means “Devastatingly deadly.” There are not any labels or diagrams to help with the identification of anything.
Pictures of the organisms display attack mode throughout the book that enhance the reader’s interpretation of deadliness. Each item, whether it is an organism, weather event, or geologic occurrence, has its own page devoted to it.
The table of contents provides the categories and page numbers of each item; however it does not describe each item. No index was provided.
An introduction is given that provides an overall explanation of what the book is about by providing examples of the things that could kill you. The first half of the introduction the authors seems like she is trying to scare the reader. The second part of the introduction seems like she is trying to console the reader and convince them to not be afraid.

2. According to a web-site at the link http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/contributor/anna-claybourne, this author has written several books on nature for children. She is a self-employed freelance writer and editor. It is stated that she has “traveled a lot,” which is subjective, and she dropped out of college. Her qualifications are not too impressive in my opinion, although a great deal of the information she provided was accurate.
The so called “Deadly Degree” is subject to interpretation. The author does not seem to take into consideration the chances that one may come in contact with these “things” when she constructed this information. She also sensationalized the dangerousness of these organisms and events by displaying images of them in attack mode and with over sensationalized descriptors, such as “…killer castor bean plant…” and “Ugh!”
As soon as I brought the book home my 10 year old son took it from me and was looking at it with great interest. I thought to myself that I would look at it later at bedtime. When bedtime came, my son took the book again and the flashlight. He said that he “…has to look at this” and that was that. I finally got to see it the next day after he was done.
This book was ordered by specifying each item one by one and page by page. The author was very clear with her writing and the language level is appropriate for the intended audience. Since the author is a writer, I would expect her to be able to write to a young audience with out too many issues. One mistake she made though was when she misused the word poison when she was discussing the venom of a sea snake, whereas she used the correct word as venom when discussing the bushmaster. I do not understand why she would get it right when discussing one type of snake and get it wrong when discussing another.
The content was exciting, yet she did not go into too much depth. She could have gone a little more in depth I believe, considering who her target audience is. A map that demonstrated the locations that each organism or event are known to occur would have been useful to a young reader.
The chapters were given titles that sensationalized the content, such as “Animals that Attack” and “Killer Reptiles and Fierce Fish.” One of the chapter titles was misleading I thought and was called “Bloodthirsty Beasties.” Many of the organisms in this chapter do feed on blood, but many do not. There was also a section head at the beginning of each chapter and a subhead was located ate the top of each page identifying the item in bold letters. The table of contents looked like an index. Given the lack of complexity in the book and the intended audience, this content format would suffice I believe. A glossary was not provided, although one would have enhanced the quality of the book.
The book only contains photographs, not illustrations. The photographs are colorful and in many cases, demonstrate the fierceness of these organisms and events. The teeth snarled are a frequent picture, as well as an animal in attack position and an actual attack. The bright colors associated with particular poisonous organisms, such as plants and frogs, are enhanced with the glossary paper the book is engineered with. Most of the photographs have clear labels and captions, but some unfortunately do not. Charts and graphs are not provided.
The cover is colorful as well. It displays organisms and a volcanic event with their dangerous displays, such as a puffed out puffer fish and a bushmaster getting ready to bite. The word “Deadliest” in the title is bolded, as compared to the rest of the title. The words “Get Ready to Run” are also on the front cover in bold letters with an explanation point. I believe the cover suggests sensationalism of fear, which sometimes seems to appeal to young adults. My son was taken by it.
The first endpage displays the title again and the inside of a bears open mouth displaying the tongue and teeth. The next 2 endpages are the copyrights and yet another title page with a menacing lightning storm is displayed in the background. The following 2 endpages are the contents with an image of a polar bear in attack mode in the background. The constant threat of attack is demonstrated page after page from the cover to the very last item presented. The extra inserted information of most of the pages in yellow and blue boxes is interesting information that provides little tidbits of extra history or biology.
The author titled the last page “Acknowledgements” and it appears to display the photo credits only. It is unclear because of the format, which appears to be one jumbled up paragraph with page numbers between each name. There is also a subheading called “Key,” but I am unclear as to what this is a key for and I read the whole book. A bibliography is not provided.
When I used the visual model to analyze text by Penny Colman suggested in her article “A New Way to Look at Literature: A Visual Model for Analyzing Fiction and Nonfiction Texts,” I used a scale of 1 to 10. 1 means the least or lowest and 10 means the highest or most.
· No Made-up Material-All Made-up Material----------1
· Minimal Information-Lots of Information-------------2
· Simple Structure-Complex Structure-------------------1
· No Narrative Text-All Narrative Text------------------1
· No Expository Text-All Expository Text--------------10
· No Literary Devices-Many Literary Devices----------7
· Minimal Author’s Voice-Intense Author’s Voice-----10
· No Front/Back Matter-Copious Front/Back Matter----2
· No Visual Material-Copious Visual Material-----------7


3. Since the main fields of science demonstrated in this book are biology, geology, and meteorology, this book could be introduced in a science class of 3rd-6th grade during a lesson on natural hazards and/or biology. The main question that the author answers for the reader is what the “deadliest things” on earth are. She also gives a little background information and to what degree the author interprets the “thing” as to how deadly it is.
Since this book has a broad category of items and it does not provide much technical information, I would probably just stick this book on the shelf in the library of an elementary school for students to check out or keep it in the classroom on the shelf for free time reading.

4. As I examined Destiny at the link that reads read.uno.edu, I observed that there are 29 children’s books on dangerous animals, 69 on natural disasters, and 51 on diseases. It is true that there are many books on the topics that are covered in the deadliest animal’s books, although I believe that this book should be kept in the book collection. It got my sons attention, so I guess it can not be too bad. The only issue is that there are many more books on the shelves that specialize on many topics covered with the book in question. Hence, there is more likely more information on each given topic in specialized books, which would work better for a more specialized lesson.

5. Many reviews that I examined at the web link http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/488487-100-most-dangerous-things-on-the-plane... really liked the book. They love the way the author describes the items and they recommend many other books written by the same author. I could not find one review that was as critical as I was about this author.
I also noticed that the other reviews tended to be shorter than mine.