The Animal Kingdom includes eighteen original non-fiction books developed by Learning Magic, Inc. and utilizing SoftTouch, Inc.'s My Own Bookshelf® technology. The Animal Kingdom provides a wide variety of self-selected reading materials for children who are becoming acquainted with the animal kingdom and its structure. There are two bookshelves of nine books each that introduce children to eighteen different animals from around the world.

Note: Because of the exceptionally rich assortment of movies associated with these books, the two bookshelves plus the installer fill a CD. Therefore The Animal Kingdom ships as either a Mac or as a Windows version CD. You must choose the platform you will use when you place the order.

Please note: The textual content and style in The Animal Kingdom books can easily be changed to meet the needs of individual students. For tips on how to do this and for terms of use for revised versions, click here.

The books include not only familiar animals but animals that are most likely new to the children.

The books provide insights not only into the animal and its traits, but also into where the animal lives and how it has adapted to its environment.

Most of books (marked with a purple star) are written at a higher mid second grade through mid third grade reading level. Two of the books (marked with a yellow star) are written at a slightly simpler, late first grade through mid second grade reading level. The star markings enable you to determine the reading level at a glance, even on the small thumbnails of the books.

Each set of books includes high quality photographs of the animals. In many books, exciting movies illustrate animal behavior, and appropriate sound effects further enhance the experience for children who are auditory learners.

The two bookshelves install directly into My Own Bookshelf®, where they will be available from the Read menu for self selected reading. You can choose one of these bookshelves and select some or all the books for a student to read. Books can also be assorted onto other bookshelves. With the My Own Bookshelf® application, an educator or staff member can easily change or edit the existing text to meet their individual students' needs if that is desired.

Alternatively, you can open individual books directly from The Animal Kingdom CD using the Readers which are included on the CD. However, being able to choose their own books is an important component of My Own Bookshelf®, so we hope that you will take advantage of this technology and install the two bookshelves.

To keep track of which books a student has read, Learning Magic has created an 8.5" x 14" poster to print with all 18 books pictured in their places on the two bookshelves. Markers are also included so that a student could put a marker saying "I Read It!" on each book on the poster upon completion. Both these documents are included on the CD as PDF files. You can click to download the poster right here to see for yourself!

Sample Books To Download!

You can try out two of the stories by downloading from this site. Choose Dragonflies, one of the two Yellow Star level books, and/or Orangutans, one of the Purple Star level books. If you need the Readers, download them from the SoftTouch®-based Products page.