Tails: Books For Kids

Tails are irresistible to toddlers, and in Matthew Van Fleet’s sturdy touch-and-feel board book, preschool-age pokers and prodders can finally tug to their heart’s content. Engaging, cartoonish animals from tigers to pangolins romp across the pages as the rhyming text bounces along: “Tails fluffy, / Tails stringy, / Scaled tails strong and—clingy!” Pull tabs, lift-able flaps, tufts of fur, and even a scratch-and-sniff skunk tail provide plenty of tactile surprises. Along the way, youngsters will learn about counting, opposites, and how animals use their tails. A tried and true tail-wagger!

While Little Skink hunts yummy ants for breakfast, she is suddenly attacked by a crow! But she has a trick to escape - she snaps off her tail, and it keeps on wiggling! Little Skink is happy to be alive, but she misses her bright blue tail. Readers will enjoy pretending with her, trying on tail after tail. The first is too puffy-fluffy, and another too stinky! Then one day Little Skink gets a big surprise…and she doesn’t have to dream of tails anymore. The -For Creative Minds- section has information on tail adaptations and communications and a mix-and-match tail activity.

Invites young readers to mix and match the left-hand panels depicting the bodies of different animals with right-hand panels that show their tails. On board pages.

Step into reading with the Cat in the Hat in this leveled reader about animal tails based on an episode of the hit PBS Kids television show “The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!” While playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Sally and Nick get to wondering: What would it be like to have a tail of their own? And how would you pick the best one? Enter the Cat in the Hat. To help the kids choose, he whisks them off to the jungle to see and try on a variety of tails that serve different purposes: A monkey’s tail that is strong for holding onto branches; a quetzal’s tail that is long and colorful for attracting a mate; and a rattlesnake’s tail that makes sound as a warning. Written for children who are ready to read independently, this tale about tails is a fun, funny book that introduces kids to basic comparitive anatomy!”