Explore the World of Marc Brown

Welcome to the Preschool Book Nook, an informative place invoking those book-filled, cozy corners in classrooms and libraries.

Introduce your class to the work of author and illustrator Marc Brown. Some students may already be familiar with his most popular character, that beloved aardvark, Arthur. More than thirty years ago, Marc use to create bedtime stories for his oldest son. Most of his stories were about animals; one night, the story just happened to be about an aardvark! The rest is history, as they say.

Share these great books by Marc Brown with your students.

Clickity! Clickity!

Long green feet!

Who is dancing

that clickity beat?

Did you guess a lizard? Children will enjoy guessing, based on animal sounds and physical characteristic clues, which animal will be dancing on the next page of this fun  and rhythmic book.

One major clue will be the animal tracks or footprints featured throughout the story.  Engage students in a discussion about the identifying parts of each footprint (shape of foot and toes, etc.) and what the animal uses its feet for (climbing, swimming, etc.) Take your class on a trek through your school. Create and place various animal tracks on the floor, walls, and windows of your building; then ask students to find the animals that are on the loose! They should point out identifying elements in the footprints and make guesses about what the animal is until they find the animal and prove that they are true explorers!

Everyone loves dinosaurs! Who wouldn’t want one for a pet? But as this story demonstrates, they would require a bit more care because of their massive size.

After reading the story, discuss with the class other animals that might be more suitable as pets. List three or four of their suggestions on the board. For each proposed pet, discuss the topics covered in the book—the buying, training, caring of the pet plus the fun factor of each. At the end of the discussion, the class votes on which animal should become their class pet. But don’t worry! You won’t need to go to the pet store as a result. Have the class work together to create a bulletin board featuring an illustration of their class pet, plus short training and caring facts about it. Don’t forget to give your pet a name!

Wild About Books and Born to Read both celebrate the joy of reading, of discovering the magic of books! While reading and showing both books to the class, ask them to raise their hands when an author or book they are familiar with is mentioned in the text or shown in the illustrations (e.g., Dr. Seuss is mentioned in both books). List the class’s three most popular authors and books as demonstrated by the raised hands. To encourage and grow their love of reading, have the class create a wish list of books they would like to add to their classroom library. Ask parents at the next school meeting if they can donate a book from the list to the class. After all, as noted in Born to Read, “readers can do anything! Readers can go anyplace!”

Click here for activities based on the ARTHUR books.

Click here for a complete list of Marc Brown’s books.