Pass the Energy, Please!
Barbara Shaw McKinney Illustrated by Chad Wallace
Nature's food chains are sometimes short (grass eaten by deer) and sometimes long (goldenrod eaten by caterpillar, eaten by spider, eaten by warbler, eaten by weasel, eaten by fox). Everyone is part of nature's fascinating circle of players.
Each of nature's creatures "passes the energy" in its own unique way. In this upbeat rhyming story, the food chain connects herbivores, carnivores, insects and plants together in a fascinating circle of players. All beings on Earth - from the anchovy to the zooplankton - depend upon the green plant, which is the hero of the story. Barbara McKinney's special talent shines again for being able to present the science curriculum so consisely, creatively, and cleverly.
ENERG-P Paper $7.95 ISBN 1-58469-002-X
ENERG-H Cloth $16.95 ISBN 1-58469-001-1
Ages 6-12 80 pages 34 photo/illustrations 6" x 9"
Skipping Stones Magazine - 2001 Honor Award
(Combined review of Pass the Energy Please! and A Drop Around the World.)
Teacher, writer and poet Barbara McKinney has written two books which attempt to bring some beauty and art to science lessons.
. . . In Pass the Energy Please!, Ms. McKinney . . . uses poetry to describe how energy is captured and transferred from one organism to another at various trophic levels. Once again, the illustrations are superb and the contents are entirely adequate for the children ages 6 to 12. Like her previous book, this one has a teacher's guide available (separately). . . . Both books succeed in slowly and cumulatively making the points that the author intends. She manages to present things just as they are. As a former elementary and middle school teacher, I found these two books would make a nice addition to a creative and challenging curriculum. In addition, parents of young children would enjoy using these books as a good source to create a story or to simply add to child's bookshelf.
NABT (National Assoc. of Biology Teachers)
Reviewed by Jose Vazquez - Univ. of Illinois at Chicago
This rhyming book explains the food chain and how nature's creatures "pass the energy" by becoming one another's food source. The story's hero is the green plant, upon which all other creatures depend. A teacher's guide is available.
Learning (Fall 2000)
herbivore books, carnivore books, insects and plants, food chain book, food web book, trophic levels book, predator, omnivore, predation book, food source, enery transfer, nutrient cycling book, energy transfer, carbon cycle book, childrens picture book, children's picture book, young readers picture book, Kathy Wildman, Whatdidyoubringme?, whatdidyoubringme, what did you bring me
