CONTENT:
An Island Grows (2006) by Lola M. Schaefer and Cathie Felstead is a picturebook that explains how a volcanic island develops, starting from the moment in which the volcano erupts and showing how the lava progressively stratifies under the ocean and finally emerges from it. The picturebook shows how the island takes shape though the ages and how plants and animals populate it, until the arrival of human beings. The authors show to the readers how the human population inhabit the island and modifies it. The picturebook ends as it started: by presenting another island that in the meantime is taking shape somewhere else in the ocean.
WHY USING THIS PICTUREBOOK:
This picturebook allows children to approach geology in a simple but stimulating way, through the presentation of some concepts related to vulcanology and the formation of volcanic islands. The text is written in rhymes and it presents the new terms in an essential and comprehensible way. The illustrations and the written text combine in a symmetrical interplay, thus providing visual support to promote comprehension. The images offer a clear representation of the sequence of the events, helping children to understand how events are linked one to the other. For example, in the first pages, in order to help children understand how the stratification takes place, the illustrator offers a sequence of images that show how the lava settles, thus visually representing the progression of the phenomenon.
