Life in the Very Slooooow Lane

The Secret Life of the Sloth

by Laurence Pringle; illus. by Kate Garchinsky 

32 pages; ages 6-9

‎Boyds Mills Press, 2021

theme: animal families, rainforest, nonfiction

Perezoso swims. She swims across a narrow river to reach a place in the rainforest where she knows there are tree leaves she likes to eat.

Perezoso is a three-fingered sloth who spends her life in the trees. Readers will travel with her as she searches for food, escapes the clutches of a harpy eagle, and gives birth to a baby.

What I like about this book: Perezoso’s secret life high in the rainforest canopy fits in well with Pringle’s other books in the “secret life” series. He provides details that you might not otherwise ponder. For example: sloths have weak back legs. So when she is on the ground, she needs to have strong front arms that can pull her along on her belly. And algae grows on her hair. And moths and beetles and other tiny creatures make their home in her fur – some of them snacking on the algae.

I like that this book ends the same way it begins – with Perezoso swimming in the river. And there is Back Matter! (You know I love back matter) This is where we learn what the sloth’s name means, and about fossils of giant sloths, and how hanging upside down affects the internal anatomy of an animal. We also learn how the slow, secret life of sloths is threatened by humans.

Beyond the Books:

Find out more about the brown-throated three-toed sloth. Here’s an article, and here’s another.

Get to know a sloth. One way is to visit a zoo where sloths live. Observe the sloth for a while. What kind of sloth is it? What is it doing? If it’s moving, figure out how long it takes to travel a certain distance.

Move like a sloth. Need inspiration? Here’s a video to get you moving… very …. slowly.

Today we're joining Perfect Picture Book Friday, an event where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Explore Outdoors ~ Catching Snow Leaf by Leaf

 

Some leaves cling tight to their trees - even when all their friends have twirled and floated and wobbled earthward. Those left behind get tattered by the wind. Sometimes, those rips and tears create tiny shelves and pockets where snow collects. Sometimes leaves curl as they dry, forming funnels and cones that create safe havens to shelter snowflake gatherings.

Snow collects on twigs and branches, on abandoned bird nests and clotheslines and spiky flower heads. Where do you find snow collecting in your yard and neighborhood?

Writing about Nature...

Every morning I spend time with a cup of coffee and my notebook. Sometimes I write about what I see outside my window. Sometimes I write about a fungus or insect I observed the day before. Sometimes I've got an idea for a story, and other times I'm left wordless.

It was on one such wordless day that I threw down my pencil in disgust (fortunately missing the coffee) and flipped through the pages of my notebook in search of inspiration. Anything. A list of words to get me going - heck! even one word would do. 

I didn't find a list, but I did remember something: back in October some of my illustrator friends participated in an "art-ober" challenge to draw a sketch each day based on a list of prompts. Hmmmm, I thought, I could sure use something like that. A list of words biased toward my science interests. 

So I began scribbling as many as I could think of: obvious ones, like tree and fungi. Words with texture and edges and layers and smells. Words that sprouted in gardens and pushed up through moldering leaves of a forest floor.

Here are a few of them. Ration 'em out one a week and you've got a year's worth of nature-writing prompts. Meanwhile, I've got a blank page in my notebook just waiting for more fun nature words to drop by.

 

Nature Words