Are you looking for a book that will take your child beyond a picture book? Adorable Publishing has given you that option and more! After A While Crocodile: Alexa’s Diary is a great way to learn about crocodiles in a way that kids will understand.

Within this book, we get to follow along with Alexa and her American Crocodile Jefe in their journey. This book takes place in Costa Rica and introduces us to a program that allows the schoolchildren to each raise an American Crocodile in their classroom.

We start at the beginning and see how Alexa first met Jefe, from finding him as an egg, hatching him and raising him to be ready to head out on his own and make sure that he has a great start.

Within this book, we are shown the diary entries of a small girl named Alexa. We not only see hand drawn pictures, but also real pictures. We had the chance to read through this short yet informative story. Once we are done reading, we found some great activities to take our learning farther than just the reading.

These activities at the end of the book are fun, interactive and simple. You take your reading into more focused learning with these activities and will want to go back and re-read the story again. You can look further into the story after you learn more about the crocodile, their teeth vs your own and what is happening with the crocodiles in the world.

On top of all that is included in the book, you have access to free online resources that will take this from a simple book to a unit study. We were able access Teaching Activities, Quizzes and Related Websites to go with our For Creative Minds. These extra resources made it possible to take this one book and go so much further into learning.

If you are looking for a fun, simple way of adding in some learning with a fun picture book, this is one of the best we have found. We were able to use this with our 5, 8 and 16 year olds. While the 16-year-old thought it was too easy, he has just as excited to hop in with the extras and we added in an extra paper to go with this for him. This was a fun addition to our morning time routine and a great way to add some simple science into the youngest ones’ school day without adding in too much “work”.

Check out more books from ArbordalePublishing.com and see if there is one there that matches a study you are currently working on!

—Product review by Amanda Hopkins, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, December, 2016