Great Big Book Of Mighty Machines Hb

A richly illustrated book about the big machines kids love. Kids love big machines: watching real machines do real work, playing with toy machines, reading and talking about all kinds of machines. The bigger, the better! The Great Big Book of Mighty Machines is one big and mighty book about the massive moving machines that kids love: monster trucks, dump trucks, fire trucks, tractors, big bikes, cranes, trains and airplanes! One big bundle of mightiness. Vivid color photographs of machines at work jump off the page. Large, easy-to-read type describes the machines, their parts and what they are used for. Red arrows point out special features. Glossaries explain essential terms, and suggested activities, like quizzes, "what to draw" and "pick the picture," add to the fun. Editorial Reviews From School Library Journal Grade 3-6--This is a great big book full of all kinds of vehicles, but it has some great big problems. Each section opens with the question, "What is a bike?," ...a car? ...a train? ...a dump truck? and then provides the answer in an easy-to-read text. However, the vocabulary is not consistent. Words such as "traction," "tread," "fertilizer," "insecticide," and "herbicide" are omitted, but "suspension" and "maneuverable" are used. Most problematic is the section on "Tractors and Farm Vehicles." The double-bladed plow that is shown is most likely of European origin and not usually seen in this country. The plowed ground is on the wrong side of the tractor and a plow does not make furrows or "chop up the dirt." Wheat is not "collected," it is harvested. The reel, the part that spins on the front of the combine, does not cut the grain stalk. The cut stalks are not sucked into the combine, but are augered to the center of the header and into the combine. In most cases, wheat straw is not baled. If it is baled, it is not used as fodder as it has very little food value. It most definitely is not cut by the baler. Oversimplified vocabulary and inaccuracies keep this book from being even a marginal purchase.--Eldon Younce, formerly at Harper Elementary School, KS Copyright å¨ Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Starting with the cover image of a dragon-emblazoned monster truck surrounded by a constellation of zooming vehicles, this picture-book-size, photo-packed volume offers a visual feast for young gearheads. Each of the seven sections focuses on a different transportation machine, from a basic bicycle to high-speed trains and the crawler-transporters that NASA uses to carry space shuttle crafts to the launch pad. The clear, direct text is brief, with just a few bites of information on each page, but taken as a whole, the book delivers a wealth of accessible facts. Still, it's the images that are the main attraction here, and interested kids will be entranced by the multiple color photos of machines at work on each page. A list of suggested activities closes each section and invites interactive fun, but this title will find its largest audience among young browsers, including preschoolers, who will simply want to flip through the pages again and again and lose themselves in this gallery of mechanical marvels. Preschool-Grade 3. --Gillian Engberg