Little Lost Bat

Little Lost Bat

Little Lost Bat

Written by: Sandra Markle

Illustrated by: Alan Marks

Charlesbridge, 2006

29 pages

Nonfiction

Little Lost Bat is a nonfiction book about a baby bat and his mother bat. At night the mother bat goes looking for food. She eats nearly her weight in insects and comes back to feed her baby. The mother bat finds her baby amongst all the other baby bats by using a specific sound. One night, an owl eats the mother bat. The baby waits for days and almost starves. The baby hears a mother calling, and even though he knows it’s not his mother, he answers. The mother that he answered knows he is not her baby, but she feeds him anyway since her baby was eaten by a snake.

The illustrations in this book were done in watercolor, pen, and pencil on Daler Bloxworth paper. The detail on the bats can really be seen in this book.

I would use this book in my classroom when studying bats. There is an author’s note, facts, and resources in the back of the book about bats. I would also have my students do an art project on bats.

Sandra Markle has won awards from NSTA/CBC (Outstanding Trade Books for Children), ABA (Pick of the Lists), and ALA (Notable Books for Children). Alan Marks won the Carnegie Medal for his first children’s book, Storm.