A Snake Is Totally Tail

by Judi Barrett

Short and sweet descriptions are paired with colorful illustrations in this picture book sure to teach your young reader essential characteristics about various animals.

Judi Barrett helps differentiate the animals that roam the plains, swim in the oceans, and fly through the sky with this colorful picture book.

Words and pictures demonstrate identifying factors and essential characteristics of animals big and small—from snakes and porcupines to skunks, bears, and many others.

Genres: Picture Books, Science, Animals

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Judi Barrett is an American author and art teacher best known for imaginative children’s picture books, most notably Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing. Raised in Brooklyn, she trained in advertising design before working as a freelance designer and later turning to education, teaching art and woodworking to young children while pursuing further studies in early childhood education and studio arts. She frequently collaborated with illustrator Ron Barrett, creating several popular titles together. Her whimsical storytelling, blending humor with inventive concepts, has made her books enduring favorites, some adapted for film, while she has continued teaching and writing.

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Snake is Totally Tail, by Judi Batrett shows all types of animals with a descriptive word about each one. I used it to introduce animals not in our local area and talk about each one to increase both knowledge of the nature and vocabulary with my preschool school age classes. Some of the illustrations are in color and some are black and white line drawings. The children liked to guess the colors of the animals in the black and white pictures.

[Cassie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book teaches some things about animals and alliteration, so I could use it for science and ELA. I did get a lot of questions from the class on why some pictures have color and others are black and white.

[Nichole · Rating 3 out of 5]

You could use this to teach adverbs or description. Black and white pages would be good for coloring pages. Can easily have students make their own like the examples in the book.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a cute story that can be used to reinforce/teach the names of different animals and their physical characteristics. I used it as a participation story for a snake-themed preschool story time program at MJC's Great Valley Museum of Natural History. What I like about this book is that it uses alliteration at the end of the sentences, such as "...totally tail," "...blatantly bzzzzzz," "...scores of spots," etc. The illustrations are interesting in that they switch back and forth between color illustrations and black and white illustrations.

[Marcie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just reread this class and know why it is such a good model to teach alliteration.