Toco Toucans Bright Enough to Disappear

Toco Toucans Bright Enough to Disappear

By Anastasia Suen

Bearport Publishing, 2010

Disappearing Acts Series

ISBN #978-1-936087-45-7

Nonfiction picture book

Grades K-3

Look Again

“In the lush tropical rain forest, brightly colored fruit can be seen growing in trees. Look closely, however. One of the pieces of fruit isn’t really fruit. It’s bird called a toco toucan!”

Among the many species of the toucan, the toco toucan is the most recognized, with its cartoon-like beak and coloring. But it’s exactly that coloration that provides its camouflage in the rain forest, and that’s the purpose of this series of books—to show examples of animals that hide within plain sight. This colorful bird has adaptations that allow it to eat, sleep, reproduce, and hop around in trees successfully.

Bright, colorful pictures illustrate the short text sections. New words are bolded within the narrative passages and colorful captions accompany the pictures. The book has a table of contents, a picture glossary, and an index. Further reading and Bearport online sections complete the final page.

The clear, sharp writing makes this book perfect for the lower grades and leads the way to a discussion of adaptations and camouflage for science classes.

Activity 1

Create a chart that shows the different ways a toco toucan uses camouflage to keep safe.

Activity 2

With the children, make a list of the events in a toco toucan’s life cycle. Then have them use the list to write a paragraph explaining the life cycle.

See more activities at the author’s page.

Examples of other toucans 

Here’s a printable crossword puzzle.

Work the online puzzle.

Bearport Books has more books about unusual animals and camouflage.

Anastasia Suen, the author of over 100 books, has more information at her website.

National Science Standards: life cycles of organisms; organisms and their environment

Book provided by publisher