Things That Make You Go Yuck!: Extreme Living is part of a series of small, attractive student-friendly books that include Mystifying Mutants, Crooked Critters and Odd Couples that focus on "extreme" or particularly unusual facts about animals that would not be part of a regular science unit. For example Extreme Living has a chapter called "Gross Anatomy" that features a fungus that grows in white clumps and drips a blood-red goop and a goldfish that has eyes that grow in bubbles that pop out of their head. Each animal fact is presented in a small 2-page spread that includes vibrant photographs on glossy pages and catchy titles supplemented by paragraphs of dense text. The text includes complex science-specific vocabulary without definitions and is packed on the page. Curious students with well-developed reading skills might read and learn interesting information. Most students are likely to simply enjoy the photographs and might read only the call-out or "extreme" point such as, "Look, this is a jellyfish that never dies. It can make itself new again by creating new cells every time it has a problem with its body." Overall, this attractive book will visually appeal to students, but the dense reading means that most students are unlikely to read or retain very much.

• Provides sufficient and varied types of practice problems to maximize understanding and generalization of the targeted skill/concept
• Manufacturer claims alignment with Common Core/Known Standards
• Presents educational concepts accurately
• Explains answers so students can learn from mistakes
• Better for teaching the skill to new or struggling learners
• Better for practicing or refreshing the skill
• Skills are practiced through authentic, meaningful problems (not just rote practice)

• Appropriate for a broad age range to use and enjoy
• Subject matter and problems are relevant, interesting and authentic to students
• Includes reward stickers
• Visually stimulating and appealing (uses student-centered pictures, colors, and themes)
• Graphics and overall feel of the workbook is appropriate for the target age range
• Relative to most workbooks, fun to use from a child's perspective
• Offers ongoing, progressive challenge
• Overall - Enjoyable. Given the option, students would choose this option

• Provides teaching guidance for adults to support the child and set appropriate goals
• Student should be able to use independently after first use
• Specific topics/lessons are easy to find
• Presents information in multiple formats (voice over, pictures and text, etc.)
• Overall - Easy to use

• Reading Basics
• Reading Comprehension
• Reading Fluency
• Verbal Reasoning
• Assumes specific knowledge or vocabulary without "look-up" options
• Visual Discrimination
• Words used during activity can be too small or difficult to read
• Visually distracting with too many pictures, problems or moving objects
• Vocabulary
• Assumes specific knowledge or vocabulary without "look-up" options

Life isn't always easy, but some organisms take hard living to the extreme. Things That Make You Go Yuck!: Extreme Living looks at organisms living in the weirdest of ways: swimming miles deep in the ocean, freezing on icy mountaintops, boiling in hot springs, or even floating in space. You'll also find critters bigger, smaller, softer, longer, and stretchier than you ever thought possible. Whether it's nature's slimiest organisms or the weirdest mutations, Things That Make You Go Yuck! celebrates survival of the fittest, grossest, craziest, and creepiest things in nature, proving once and for all that life in the wild is anything but ordinary.