Pell Elementary School Library: Rainforest

Splitter, splat, splash! While they sleep, the forest fills with the sounds of the night creatures. Sloop! A silky anteater slurps up thousands of ants. Flap flap! A bat bites a fig. Hssss. A snake thrusts its tongue to taste the air. The air carries the taste of mouse. Everywhere night creatures with huge bright eyes slither and slurp through the darkness. Come explore the rain forest! A downpour wakes the creatures of the rain forest. Howler monkeys roar and drink the water that drips from nearby leaves. Birds with rainbow beaks fly in search of shelter. A poison dart frog finds a tiny pool where her tadpoles can grow. In a place that gets twenty feet of rain a year, it is a way of life.

A walk through the Costa Rican cloud forest provides a wonderfully lush setting for Jan Brett's beloved animal illustrations. When Carlos drops his umbrella to climb a tree for a better view of the animals, they all cram into the banana-leaf umbrella as it floats by--from the little tree frog to the baby tapir to the big jaguar and more. It gets so crowded in the umbrella that there isn't even enough room for a little hummingbird! So over the umbrella tumbles, everyone falls out, and poor Carlos comes back wondering why he didn't see any animals all day.

Walk alongside an award-winning nature artist as she observes, draws, paints, and writes about the majesty of the world's largest temperate rain forest. Richly illustrated, evocative, and highly informative, this careful study is an engaging, first-hand look at an ecological treasure.