Little Panda : The World Welcomes Hua Mei at the San Diego Zoo

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and educational
Review: I'll be perfectly honest: I love following Hua Mei's story at the San Diego Zoo web site. I'm a complete sucker for panda stories. So I was pleased to finally see a more permanent record of Hua Mei's first year.

While I bought this book for the photographs (which are plentiful, large, and beautiful), this book should also appeal to children and parents because of its text (or perhaps I should say "texts"). The author has written two parallel texts: one fairly simple and straightforward for younger readers, printed in large type, and a slightly more complex one in smaller type, giving more detailed information about pandas. By creating a book that appeals to more than one reading level, Ms. Ryder has given us a book that parents will be able to share with their young children as they grow older and learn to read.

Make no mistake; this is not a detailed textbook about pandas. If that's what you're looking for, I recommend George Schaller's LAST PANDA (also available from Amazon.com, coincidentally enough). But this is a good introduction for young children, who may be able to indentify with the young Hua Mei. For older panda lovers, this is an excellent collection of photographs. The only thing that keeps me from giving this book five stars (besides the fact that I never give anything five stars) is that I can never get enough information about Hua Mei.