There's a Tiger in My Soup!

Tiger in My Soup 
by Kashmira Sheth; illustrated by Jeffery Ebbeler
32 pages; ages 4-8
Peachtree 2013

theme: reading, imagination, and what can you do to get your sister to pay attention to you...

 Today, my big sister is in charge of the house, the lunch, and me.
I hold up my book. "Will you read to me?" I ask.
"Not now," she says.

What's a guy to do when his sister is too busy reading her own book to sit down and read to him? Especially his favorite book - the one about tigers? She's so engrossed in her novel that she doesn't see the tiger in the alphabet soup. She misses out on the chase scenes, the running-for-your-life scenes... indeed, all the action going on in the kitchen.

I love the imagination, the roaring, and most of all the spoon-wielding kid wearing a colander on his head - so like my own kids at that age.

Beyond the Book
Find wild animals in your soup. One of the games we used to play at lunchtime was finding words in alphabet soup. You can use alphabet cereal - or even scrabble tiles - but it's just so much more fun to spell out animals and eat them. Especially lions and tigers and bears (oh my).

Where Tigers really live - it's not a can of soup. This National Geographic Creature Feature has maps to show where tigers live, as well as cool facts and a great video of a tiger getting a bath.

It's also part of PPBF (perfect picture book Friday), an event in which bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's site. She keeps an ever-growing list of Perfect Picture Books. Review copy provided by publisher

Tiger in Trouble and other Amazing Animal Rescues

Tiger in Trouble! and More True Stories of Amazing Animal Rescues

By Kelly Milner Halls

112 pages, ages 7 and up

National Geographic Children's Books, 2012

“Keeping a baby tiger as a pet might seem like a great idea,” writes Kelly Milner Halls. After all, they weigh only a few pounds, they don’t have teeth, and they’re cute. But as they grow older they get bigger and stronger – and they play rough. And they can hurt their owners.

What happens to tigers when their owners can’t care for them? If they’re lucky, they end up at a zoo. Or, like ten-year-old Nitro, at the Carolina Tiger Rescue. Tigers in captivity can live to be 20 years old – that’s a long time to feed them and provide adequate living space. Halls describes how Nitro was rescued and transferred to his new home. She tells how, when his caretakers discovered he was blind, they taught him to find his way around his new home. And she describes a typical tiger meal: 15 pounds of meat – whole chickens, beef, goats, deer.

Nitro lucked out. He will live out his days in a safe home, with loving care and plenty of food. Not all wild animals raised as pets fare as well. Halls includes a story about Suzie, and Olive baboon, and her adopted family of Vervet monkeys – Bob and Caleb. Though they came from different homes, they eventually found each other at the Primate Recue Center in Kentucky.

Although they’re not as big as tigers, monkeys and other primates still require special care. They need healthy food, toys to manipulate, and ropes and other things to play on. And when their humans are too busy to provide those things, young primates suffer.

This is a great book for any youngster who wants to work in a zoo. Not only does Halls give readers an up close and personal look at life with wildlife rescuers, she lets kids know what they can do to help.

Check out other great nonfiction today at the Nonfiction Monday gathering, hosted today at Hope is the Word. Review copy provided by publisher.