I have been on the hunt for some great informational text. I wanted to find text that were complex enough to allow me to use the books in a wide variety of ways but had good "meat" to the information. I came across two series that are wonderful and fit my needs perfectly! One is the "Who Would Win?" series and the other is the "Scientists in the Field" series.
Students of all ages are intrigued with the idea of a battle between two similar animals...who would win? The Who Would Win series provides tons of interesting facts about two opponents as well as a nice sprinkling of gross details to keep everyone engaged. I used this series to set up Argumentation writing. We made a chart and kept track of the particular trait or feature in the column of the animal we thought would "win" utilizing that trait. In the end we made our claim based on the information we gathered and supported our argument with facts from the text. 4th graders, both boys and girls, couldn't get enough of this! These books are all by Jerry Pallotta and are published by Scholastic.
The "Scientists in the Field" series are much more complex, with lots of text and many pictures and charts, graphs, etc. to explain the work of the various scientists. These books are great for research, studying informational text features, and as mentor text for informational text writing. There are 28 or so titles in the series, with animals being the main focus. Some of my favorites are The Tanantula Scientist, The Bat Scientist, and The Snake Scientist. These books are all by different authors and are published by Houghton Mifflin.
I would recommend both series as you build your libary of informational text.
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