A Cloud Forest Food Chain: A Who-eats-what Adventure in Africa (Follow That Food Chain)

An African cloud forest has an unusual and unique climate all to its own. During the night the temperature is so cold it is almost freezing, yet during the day “mist swirls in low spots.” The elevation of this forest is so steep that the clouds almost continually swirl through it. The trees are gnarly and the vegetation is so dense that you would have to use a machete to chop your way through it. No one really knows if or what kinds of unusual animal and plant species lie within the central African cloud forests because “these jungles are some of the last places on the planet to be explored by humans.” This book will allow you to explore a cloud forest on your own terms because you can choose where you’ll go. No two people reading this book will head in exactly the same direction!The mountains in the cloud forest were “created by ancient volcanoes.” You can read this book cover to cover if you so choose, but it is much more fun to follow the food chain and discover “who-eats-what.” Tertiary consumers are the toughest predators and, as a rule, have no enemies. When you start reading you will choose a tertiary consumer and wend your way through the book hopping around through the secondary consumers to the decomposers. You’ll see and learn about the leopard, the collared sunbird, the rock hyrax, the speckled cockroach, a giant forest hog, mountain gorillas, fungi, impatiens, begonias, the okapi, the highland mangabey, butterflies, the African golden cat, a strange-horned chameleon, the eastern black-and-white colobus monkey, the cloud forest vegetation, the honey badger, the black mamba, the tropical house gecko, the chimpanzee, termites, the martial eagle, the Ruwenzori turaco, the giant otter shrew, and the blue duiker.This is the second book I’ve read in the “Follow That Food Chain” series. I loved weaving and wending my way through the book. What I like about this exiting and unusual approach to reading was that I was able to choose my own experience. For example, after I read about the okapi the last sentence stated, “Last night for dinner the okapi chewed on . . . “ At that point I had four choices and could choose where I wanted to go. I hit a few spots where I experienced those “WOW” moments when I chanced upon an interesting fact I wasn’t aware of. In the back of the book is an index, a glossary and additional recommended book and website resources. If you purchase this book for a reluctant reader, you’ll soon notice that “mmmm, where am I going next look? plastered all over his or her face!