This review is written by my beautiful cousin, Jaime, who is going to be a guest reviewer at KellysLuckyYou.com. Jaime is one of the stars in my life that make me feel very lucky indeed.
Cheery
The true adventures of a Chiricahua Leopard Frog
How many of you try to save the world every day a little bit at a time? Maybe you find yourself doing it in your own little personal way like cutting the plastic rings from your soda before tossing it out or reusing old plastic bags or switching to a non gas guzzling mower. I’m about to tell you how a certain species of frogs is disappearing and what we can do to help their survival.
This past summer my husband asked our son if he would like to try to make a home made mosquito repellent. We were having a really difficult time with our current spray not getting the job done. Well, the conversation spiraled into making a spray that killed all mosquitoes. My 8 year old immediately said, “Well Dad, we couldn’t do that because then how could frogs and other amphibians who survive off of bugs, like mosquitoes, survive.” Wow, I thought. What a deep thought…but so true. When reading this book I thought again to myself what can I do, as little as it may be, to help keep our world beautiful and thriving.
The story of Cheery the Chiricahua frog, who’s species is trying to survive, with the help of it’s author, Dr. Elizabeth W. Davidson and her team through the Arizona Game and Fish Department Heritage Fund, is a family friendly and teacher friendly book.
Cheery is a frog – a Chiricahua Leopard Frog, (Bless You!) it’s pronounced Cheer-a-cow-ah, to be precise. Follow his amazing story from the time he’s just an egg in a pond, to when he swims away as a tadpole, and later grows into a frog. This book is a great teaching tool for the Elementary Science teacher who is doing a unit on nature or the life cycle of a frog.
In this new, informative book, young readers will learn why some frogs, like Cheery, and other amphibians are dramatically declining in numbers around the world and may become extinct unless something is done to save them. The existing population of Chiricahua Leopard Frog is being enhanced by the Chiricahua Leopard Frog Recovery Plan being conducted by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Arizona Game and Fish Department.
This book is $15.95 in paperback form, but part of the proceeds go directly back to the Heritage Fund for the Game and Fish foundation which I liked.
Author Dr. Elizabeth W. Davidson is a research scientist at Arizona State University where she is working to save these amazing amphibians. “Cheery: The True Adventures of a Chiricahua Leopard Frog” puts the problem in terms that young readers can grasp. And that’s important, for today’s children will become tomorrow’s stewards of our earth.
The book contains valuable lesson guides for parents and teachers.  I suggest actually reading the guide before reading the book. It instructs the reader on how to use their good comprehension skills by using their Before, During and After reading processes. As a reading teaching at the middle school level, we use these skills all of the time and to have it already implemented in this book, really shows how much the author wants the reader to be able to assimilate with the stories issues.
Ok, so now for my favorite part….the pictures. The book is 33 pages long and sometimes a reader needs to lose themselves in the art work. The pictures in this book are awesome. They look like water color with charcoal accents. I wanted to tear the entire book apart and paste it to my sons walls to retell the story and use it as trim at the same time. This way it would be a daily reminder that each of us can do our part in some form to help the earth. The illustrator is Michael Hagelberg and he does a fabulous job at bringing the reader into the story. Props to you Michael!
Have fun reading this book as a family or in your classroom!
Disclosure of Material Connection: Â All opinions are my own or Jaime’s unless otherwise stated. Â I was sent a copy of the book in the hopes that I would post about it on my blog. Â This disclosure is in accordance with FTC guidelines.