Just as words can tell a story, so can graphs. Pick up a newspaper or magazine and you will probably see several articles accompanied by graphs. Graphs are useful because they communicate information visually and can usually be read more quickly than the raw data from which they are made. This month’s lessons use the high-interest topic of zoo animals to teach students about using graphs to organize and communicate data. The featured trade books include Giraffe Graphs by Melissa Stewart and Tiger Math: Learning to Graph from a Baby Tiger by Ann Whitehead Nagda and Cindy Bickel.