My First Day

by Steve Jenkins, Steve Jenkins (Illustrator), Robin Page

Overview

The first day of life is different for every animal. Human newborns don’t do much at all, but some animals hit the ground running. The Caldecott Honor–winning team Steve Jenkins and Robin Page apply their considerable talents to revealing how twenty two different species, from the emperor penguin to the Siberian tiger, adapt to that traumatic first few hours of life, with or without parental help. Jenkins’s vividly colorful cut-paper illustrations are eye-poppingly three-dimensional and as exquisite as ever. While the text is short and sweet, an illustrated guide provides descriptions of the twenty two animals in the back. Fantastic!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547738512
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	01/08/2013
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	137,345
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.10(d)
Lexile:	590L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 7 Years

About the Author

Steve Jenkins wrote and illustrated many nonfiction picture books for young readers, including the Caldecott Honor Book What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? His books have been called stunning, eye-popping, inventive, gorgeous, masterful, extraordinary, playful, irresistible, compelling, engaging, accessible, glorious, and informative.

Steve Jenkins wrote and illustrated many nonfiction picture books for young readers, including the Caldecott Honor Book What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? His books have been called stunning, eye-popping, inventive, gorgeous, masterful, extraordinary, playful, irresistible, compelling, engaging, accessible, glorious, and informative.

Robin Page has worked on numerous bestselling and award-winning titles with her husband and collaborator, Steve Jenkins, including Caldecott Honor Book What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? She lives in Boulder, Colorado.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Fun and very educational."
—Booklist

"[A] handsome examination of child-rearing across the animal kingdom."
—Publishers Weekly

"Jenkins and Page's simple text effectively highlights the differing degrees of independence of a variety of species' young."
—Horn Book

"Jenkins and Page find yet another inviting way to connect young human readers and listeners to creatures who share their world . . . Appealing to a wide age range, this is another crowd pleaser."
—Kirkus

"The striking depictions of mother and child set against full-bleed colored backgrounds or clean white space should make for many return readings."
—School Library Journal, starred review

Editorial Reviews

…smart, informative and accessible…Jenkins's masterly paper collages achieve their usual high standards of zoological accuracy and beauty. The text is shrewdly written in the first-person voice of each baby animal, mingling personality with scientific fact.

The New York Times - Pamela Paul

There are many books about animal babies, but Jenkins and Page, whose 2003 collaboration What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? received a Caldecott Honor, stand out by zeroing in on the first day of existence. Their continuum of 22 animals runs from "Even more helpless than a human" (the Siberian tiger whose eyes are shut at birth) to "Get with the program" ("My herd stays on the move," says a newborn blue wildebeest, "and I have to keep up!") and "You're on your own, kid" (the newly hatched leatherback turtle must dodge danger by itself). Jenkins uses an impressive array of textured cut paper to capture the characters in all their furry, prickly, and downy glory. Not surprisingly, many portraits are of mothers with their offspring, but one example of male parenting is sure to stick in readers' minds: Darwin's frog, which creates a kind of nursery in its throat (Jenkins shows the offspring jauntily peeking out from his father's mouth, like nature's idea of a nesting doll). Brief, detailed profiles of each animal close out this handsome examination of child-rearing across the animal kingdom. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"Fun and very educational."
—Booklist

"[A] handsome examination of child-rearing across the animal kingdom."
—Publishers Weekly

"Jenkins and Page's simple text effectively highlights the differing degrees of independence of a variety of species' young."
—Horn Book

"Jenkins and Page find yet another inviting way to connect young human readers and listeners to creatures who share their world . . . Appealing to a wide age range, this is another crowd pleaser."
—Kirkus

"The striking depictions of mother and child set against full-bleed colored backgrounds or clean white space should make for many return readings."
—School Library Journal, starred review

"The style would work as an easy read as well as a readaloud."
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"Jenkins's masterly paper collages achieve their usual high standards of zoological accuracy and beauty. The text is shrewdly written in the first-person voice of each baby animal, mingling personality with scientific fact."
—New York Times Online —

From the Publisher

PreS-Gr 2—Another winner from this talented creative team. Jenkins's trademark cut-paper collages are up to their usual standard, which is to say they are outstanding, as he captures 23 different newborns on their first day of life. Some of the animals are familiar, such as giraffes and penguins, while others are more exotic, such as a sifaka, a muntjac, and a blue wildebeest. A few simple, clearly written sentences describe the wide variety of things that these youngsters can or cannot do upon entering the world. Children should find the information intriguing as they learn about capybaras that can swim and dive when only a few hours old and how mother zebras memorize the pattern of stripes on their babies so they can recognize them among the thousands of others in the herd. The striking depictions of mother and child set against full-bleed colored backgrounds or clean white space should make for many return readings. Additional information on each animal is included in the back matter. A first purchase for most libraries.—Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ

School Library Journal

Jenkins and Page find yet another inviting way to connect young human readers and listeners to creatures who share their world, presenting 22 baby animals that describe their very first day of life. From the kiwi that kicked its way out of its egg to the polar bear cuddled up with its mother snug and warm under the snow, each page or spread reveals an animal's initial independence and the level of parental care. There's a splendid variety, from familiar tigers and giraffes to capybaras and megapodes--even a parent bug, which gets its name because the mother, unlike most insects, stays around to guard her young larvae. The focus of Jenkins' cut-and-torn paper illustrations is on the babies, each shown against a plain background whose color may represent something of its world. Sometimes the parent is visible or partially visible. A short paragraph of read-aloud text appears on the page along with a tiny label. The backmatter reintroduces each animal with further information about where it can be found, how big it will get to be and other behaviors. While the authors have a splendid track record, it would still be nice to have sources or at least an acknowledgement that an animal expert had vetted these facts. Appealing to a wide age range, this is another crowd pleaser. (Informational picture book. 2-7)

Kirkus Reviews