I Spy....Steve Jenkins' Style

Most elementary students love I Spy books. There is one student in my second grade class who refuses to get excited about anything, except these books. He would spend hours searching through the scenery to find the hidden objects.

The book, "I See a Kookaburra!" by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page puts this curiosity to good use. It presents six different animal habitats, each with eight hidden animals. The reader has to try to find the animals, and then turn the page to see the illustration with the setting removed. The second page of each habitat tells a little bit about each animal. Not all of these animals are easy to see. In fact, there were at least two of them where I couldn't find more than six animals before I had to peek at the "cheat sheet" on the next page.

The book also contains the following note, "There are thousand of different kinds of ants. They live almost everywhere on earth and can be found in each of the habitats shown in this book. Along with the eight animals in each picture, there is an ant-somewhere. Can you see it?" This gives those expert I-Spy readers an extra challenge.

There is also a neat slide show about how Steve Jenkins makes his books on his website . It shows several of his picture sketches, and a couple pages of his original drafts. This was particularly interesting because it let the reader see how the process starts. Normally all readers get to see is the end product.