Early Book Review: The Bat by Elise Gravel

The Bat by Elise Gravel is an illustrated nonfiction book about bats perfect for beginning readers. It is currently scheduled for release on February 4 2020. This book uses conversational text and silly illustrations to teach readers about habitat (bats live everywhere except Antarctica!), species (there are over 1,200 kinds of bats), echolocation, hibernation (bats hibernate just like bears!), conservation (don't disturb a sleeping bat!) and much more. Although silly and off-the-wall, it contains factual information that will both amuse and teach at the same time.

The Bat gives the youngest readers a good introduction to facts about bats. There are some interesting facts, and important information about safety and why bats are not scary. The illustrations are fun and bold, with a touch of silly to keep the readers engaged.The text and images on each page work together perfectly and keep the narrative moving along nicely.  I found the balance of fun and fact to be good for those readers with short attention spans, and that prefer the sillier stories to non fiction text. I think this would be a hit with the  preschool and lower elementary school crowd.