Educational Bat Books for K-12

Armed with this handy guide from Merlin Tuttle's Bat Conservation (MTBC), you can have fun helping both bats and your neighborhood. We summarize decades of discoveries by more than a dozen leading experts to provide step-by-step instructions and diagrams for their favorite designs. Some of their conclusions will surprise you.

Whether you buy or build bat houses, your success will improve when using this guide. Follow the building advice or look for vendors who meet the high standards required to gain MTBC's Seal of Approval. And if you achieve exceptional success, or even unexplained failure, let the authors hear from you at MerlinTuttle.org.

Most of all, enjoy your bats and share your experiences with friends and neighbors!

Dr. Merlin Tuttle has studied and photographed bats worldwide for more than sixty years. He founded and led Bat Conservation International (BCI) for nearly thirty years, then left BCI in 2009 and founded Merlin Tuttle's Bat Conservation (MTBC).

Dr. Tuttle has published his classic research on bats in leading journals, contributed five articles to National Geographic, and lectured at institutions of science, from Harvard and Princeton Universities to the Smithsonian and British Museums. He is recognized as the father of modern bat conservation and is credited with saving the now famous Congress Avenue Bridge bat colony in Austin, Texas from extermination.

His unique photography and communication first led to the global appreciation of bats as safe, invaluable, and even adorable and likable creatures. No one has better demonstrated the power of combining captivating photos with sound science to win friends instead of battles for bats. Nor has anyone better demonstrated how conservation can benefit humans. Tuttle's legendary photos and experience provide invaluable guidance and inspiration that must be preserved and shared for future generations.

This creative thinking book promotes awareness and concern for these gentle and beneficial creatures. It is designed to help children think about bats and the issues facing them. By taking the time to foster this understanding in our young conservationists today, we will be saving a place for wildlife tomorrow.

This work of narrative nonfiction includes a 4-page For Creative Minds section in the back of the book and a 30-page cross-curricular Teaching Activity Guide online. Bat Count is vetted by experts and designed to encourage parental engagement. Its extensive back matter helps teachers with time-saving lesson ideas, provides extensions for science, math, and social studies units, and uses inquiry-based learning to help build critical thinking skills in young readers.

Katie Gillies, Director of the Imperiled Species Program at Bat Conservation International (www.batcon.org), and Catherine J. Hibbard, White-nose Syndrome Communications Leader with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, contributed by verifying the accuracy of the information in this book. 32pp, pb, early reader.

KIRKUS REVIEW

Bats are "sophisticated, beautiful, even cute, quite aside from their crucial roles as primary predators of insects, pollinators of flowers and dispersers of seeds," writes Tuttle, an ecologist who has championed their cause for more than 50 years.

The author's cover stories and photographs have been featured in National Geographic and other magazines, and he has traveled the globe to study bats in their natural cave habitats, risking his life in the process. After obtaining a doctorate in bat biology, Tuttle worked as the curator of the Milwaukee Public Museum. In 1982, he resigned and founded the advocacy organization Bat Conservation International to enlist support for these much-maligned mammals that are in danger of becoming an endangered species. Bats are wrongly accused of destroying crops and spreading diseases such as rabies, and they are confused with their mythical blood-sucking namesakes. Tuttle sets the record straight, showing the important role bats play in pest control and their potential boom for farmers. "A single bat could catch thousands of insects in just one hour," he writes. "Bats ha[ve] a far better record of living safely with humans than even our beloved dogs, and...they also play essential roles in supporting human economies." Using implanted microchips to track their behavior, scientists have established that certain bats are comparable to elephants in their ability to maintain complex social relationships. They have highly sophisticated hunting practices and are altruistic within their groups. Tuttle notes that it is not unusual to find as many as 100,000 bats clustered together hibernating. His fascination with them began when he was 12 and he observed them in a cave near his Tennessee home. Encouraged by his father, who was a botanist, he explored the local caves where bats hibernated and studied their migratory behavior. Tuttle's recent attempts to photograph them in their natural habitat have led him through many hair-raising adventures, which he entertainingly chronicles.

A page-turning memoir of curiosity about--and dedication to--a significant part of the natural world.

At the beginning the little bat is sleeping snugly on the porch with all his fellow creatures. But they move to the barn at the end of the summer and he suddenly does not see why he should go to the barn when he really wants to stay on the porch. He remains on the porch (alienation!) even though he sorely misses the others. And he also begins to feel the free curiosity and adventure of the creative spirit: the little bat stays awake in the daytime and looks about him. He ponders the coarse song of the mockingbird and wonders if he could sing too. He finds that he cannot do very well with the song, but feels drawn toward the creation of the words for songs. The first efforts of the bat-poet are judged adversely by the standard of bare reality, but he continues..

The few poems have a gravity and a melancholy sweetness. The mockingbird is an accomplished technician, able to instruct the bat in his craft. "The next-to-the-last line's iambic pentameter, and the last line's iambic trimeter," he explains at one point. In the most natural way certain critical concepts about poetry and also about the nature of the poet are brought into this little tale. The chipmunk says about poetry that "when it has all the things you do, you can't help liking it." At the end the bat-poet returns to his fellow bats, to sleep snugly with them again. Since it is the purpose of his poetry to tell them about themselves he cannot be separated from them forever or he would become unreal and shallow.

Mr. Jarrell's book is wise and childlike. The child who understands its lessons will be wise and they are easy to understand because they are found in life. The Sendak illustrations are beautiful, dark, wonderfully still and magical, in an old-fashioned way..

44pp, softbound.

2013 edition. The Bat House Builder's Handbook, at the time of publication, was the definitive source for bat house information. As primary predators of night-flying insects, bats play a vital role in maintaining the balance of nature. By consuming vast numbers of pests, they rank among humanity's most valuable allies. Just one little brown myotis can catch a thousand or more mosquito-sized insects in an hour, and a colony of 150 big brown bats can catch enough cucumber beetles each summer to prevent egg laying that otherwise could infest local gardens with 33 million rootworms. Cucumber and June beetles, stinkbugs, leafhoppers, and cutworm and corn earworm moths--all well-known pests--are just a few of the many insects consumed by these frequent users of bat houses. In addition, many pests flee areas where they hear bat echolocation sounds.

The goal is to preserve America's most widespread species in sufficient numbers to maintain nature's balance and reduce demands for chemical pesticides. Thanks to a decade of BCI-sponsored bat house research 14 species of North American batsare covered in the bat houses described in this handbook, including threatened and endangered species such as the Indiana myotis and Wagner's bonneted bat. Bat houses are being used from Mexico and the Caribbean to British Columbia and Newfoundland.

Explore the Everyday Lives of Bats

Bats have been misunderstood for generations, yet they are essential to a healthy ecosystem. From insect control to pollination services, we need bats more than most people know. Bat Basics separates fact from fiction in a fascinating, fun guide to the world's only flying mammals. Author Karen Krebbs has been studying bats for more than 30 years. She lectures, teaches, and even trains government workers on the subject--and now she's sharing her expertise with you. Learn the Bat Basics, such as how they use echolocation, why they hibernate, and what they eat. Discover bat myths that you probably thought were true. Find out how to bat-proof a house. Then turn to the field guide section, and identify a variety of common and important-to-know species. Projects, activities, and tips for helping the bat population round out this comprehensive guide. Get Bat Basics, and read all about why bats should be celebrated--not feared.

About the Author

Karen Krebbs worked at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum for more than 26 years and has extensive knowledge of birds, mammals, deserts, and animal adaptations and behavior. Her passion for hummingbirds has resulted in a book, book chapters, scientific papers, and also a husbandry manual for captive hummingbirds for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Her research on hummingbirds includes migration, nesting biology, behavior, song development, and longevity. Karen regularly advises zoological institutions and aviaries on the proper care and husbandry of captive hummingbirds. She has conducted educational workshops and seminars on birds for various organizations, schools, yearly bird festivals, and local bird groups. Karen has also studied bats for more than 30 years and carries out lectures and workshops about bats. Her long-term monitoring and inventory research project for bats in the Chiricahua Mountains is in its seventeenth year. She trains government employees on the proper protocol and handling techniques for studying bats. She has led and co-led natural history trips in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Mexico, Baja, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Galapagos, and Africa. Karen has a B.Sc. degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Science from the University of Arizona.