If Tigers Disappeared

by Lily Williams

Lily Williams imagines what could happen if tigers vanished, tracing how the loss of a top predator could affect other animals, forest plants, and the wider environment. Through accessible explanations and illustrations, this informational picture book explores ecological interdependence and the importance of protecting endangered species.

Big Idea

Every species belongs to a network of relationships, so losing one species can cause changes far beyond its own population. Writers can make complex ideas understandable by organizing information into a clear, compelling chain of causes and effects.

Discussion Questions

1.Why might the disappearance of tigers affect plants, even though tigers do not eat plants?
2.Which connection in the book’s chain of changes surprised you most, and how did the words or pictures help you understand it?
3.How does imagining a world without tigers change the way you think about their role in a forest?
4.Where does Williams slow down to explain something important, and where does the book move quickly from one effect to another?
5.What would people need to understand before deciding how best to help protect tigers and their habitats?

Lesson Plan

⏱ 50 minutes📦 A copy of the book, paper or cardstock, pencils, crayons or markers, scissors, tape, yarn or paper strips, and sticky notes.

Learning Goals

Explain at least two relationships among tigers, other animals, and forest plants.
Distinguish a directly stated effect from a possible consequence that needs further evidence.
Organize an illustrated explanation using a clear cause-and-effect sequence.
Use page placement, sentence length, or a pause to emphasize an important change.
Support an explanation with information from the book’s words or illustrations.

Activity Steps

1.Read the book aloud, pausing to identify tigers as predators and to discuss the relationships shown in the forest. Explain that the book explores a possible ecological chain reaction, not a claim that every effect happens immediately.
2.Create a class chart labeled 'Cause,' 'Possible effect,' and 'Evidence from the book.' Model one supported connection between tigers, the animals they hunt, and forest vegetation.
3.In small groups, draw organism cards and connect them with yarn or paper arrows. Label each connection with a relationship such as 'eats' or 'affects'; remove the tiger card and discuss which relationships might change.
4.Have students fold paper into four panels: a forest with tigers, tiger disappearance, a supported consequence, and why protection matters. K–2 students may draw and dictate; grades 3–5 should add captions and explain a second linked consequence.
5.Ask students to make one panel a slow-down moment using a short sentence, a larger illustration, or extra open space. Partners read the books aloud and check whether each page clearly leads to the next.
6.Share several books and close with an exit response: 'Protecting tigers matters because…' Ask students to name both an ecological connection and a writing choice they used.

Standards Connections

ELA: CCSS RI.K.3 / RI.1.3 — Describe connections among individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.
ELA: CCSS RI.3.3 — Describe relationships among scientific ideas or concepts using language of sequence and cause/effect.
ELA: CCSS W.K.2 / W.3.2 / W.5.2 — Use developmentally appropriate drawing, dictation, and informative writing to explain a topic.
Science: NGSS 3-LS4-4 — Use evidence to support a claim about a solution to a problem caused by environmental change affecting organisms.
Science: NGSS 5-LS2-1 — Develop a model describing the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment; extend the activity’s relationship model to include these components.

Pace-Write-Read Study with Pace-Write It!

In If Tigers Disappeared, Lily Williams makes an ecological explanation move forward through a powerful organizing question: what could change if one important predator vanished? Although the supplied genre label is fiction, the book is best taught as an informational picture book built around a hypothetical scenario. Its forward movement comes from connected consequences rather than a conventional hero’s adventure. Each new relationship gives readers a reason to continue and reconsider the tiger’s importance. For a Pace-Write-Read study, examine how the book balances explanation with visual discovery. Read a spread, let students inspect the illustration, and then ask what information they need next. Compare moments that introduce a new consequence with moments that require time to understand a relationship. Students can apply this craft to their own explanations: establish a situation, introduce a change, connect its effects, and slow down where a reader needs help. For younger learners, drawing and oral rehearsal can carry the sequence; older learners can refine transitions and distinguish possible outcomes from certainties.

Element	How to notice or teach it in the novel
Pacing	Track how the explanation moves from tigers to other parts of the ecosystem. Ask where readers need a pause to understand a connection before adding another consequence.
Plot	Treat the book’s organizing movement as an explanatory sequence rather than a traditional fictional plot: an ecosystem exists, a predator disappears, and consequences unfold. Students can map that movement with cause-and-effect arrows.
Prosody	Read the hypothetical changes with an inquisitive tone and the explanations with clarity rather than exaggerated alarm. Let your voice pause between a cause and its consequence so listeners can connect them.
Word	Collect words the book uses to name animals, habitats, and ecological relationships. Discuss how a precise word such as 'predator' can communicate more efficiently than a long, vague description.
Concept	Identify interdependence as the central concept: the tiger’s importance extends beyond the tiger itself. Have students explain the concept through one specific relationship before attempting the whole network.
Voice & Worldview	Discuss how the explanatory voice encourages readers to value tigers as members of an interconnected environment. Ask what the author wants readers to understand, not merely feel.
Point of View	Notice that an explanatory narrator guides readers through the ecosystem rather than a tiger telling its own story. Rewrite one brief explanation from a tiger’s perspective, then discuss what that imaginative version adds and what it cannot establish as fact.
Setting & Place	Use the illustrated forest habitat as a working part of the explanation, not simply a backdrop. Identify how plants, shelter, and feeding relationships make place essential to understanding tiger survival.
Original Characters	Tigers and the other organisms function primarily as real species, not invented personalities with individual story arcs. Let students create a fictional forest guide for their own book while keeping its ecological explanations accurate.
Dialogue	Focus on how narration and illustrations communicate relationships without needing character conversations. As an extension, students may invent a brief exchange between two forest organisms and label it clearly as imagined dialogue.
Details	Ask students to locate a visual or verbal detail that helps explain a tiger’s relationship with its environment. Distinguish details that provide evidence from details that mainly establish atmosphere.
Descriptions	Compare what the words explain with what the illustrations show about the forest. Students can practice pairing a concise explanatory caption with a picture that supplies descriptive information.
Firsts	Study the opening as the reader’s first encounter with the tiger and its ecological role. Ask what knowledge must come first for the disappearance scenario to make sense.
Immediacy & Engagement	The possibility of losing a recognizable animal makes an abstract ecological issue feel consequential. Ask students how the title invites them to imagine a change before they know its effects.
Story Scenes, Summaries & Structures	Distinguish illustrated views of habitat from passages that summarize broader ecological changes. Map the book’s cause-and-effect structure instead of forcing it into a problem-and-solution adventure template.
Tension / Suspense / Surprise	The central uncertainty is how far the effects of tiger disappearance might reach. Invite students to predict the next connection, then compare their prediction with the book’s explanation.
Flashback, Flash-Forward, Cliffhanger	The hypothetical disappearance invites readers to consider a possible future rather than documenting a past event. Use this to distinguish a projected consequence from a flashback, and avoid assuming the book uses conventional cliffhangers.
Page Turns and Chapter Breaks	Because this is a picture book, study spread-to-spread movement rather than chapter breaks. Before turning a page, ask what question or unfinished connection makes readers want the next explanation.
Pace & Creativity	Williams gives an informational topic momentum by organizing it around disappearance. Students can borrow that structural idea for a short, evidence-based explanation of another organism’s importance.
Play	Turn the book’s relationships into a movable card model so students can test what changes when the tiger card is removed. Emphasize that the model explores relationships rather than predicting exact population changes.
Performance	Assign groups to voice successive parts of a supported ecological chain. Have each group speak only after the previous group finishes, making the explanatory sequence audible.
Personality	Discuss how the author’s concern for wildlife shapes the book without turning the tiger into a humanlike protagonist. Students can develop an engaged explanatory voice without inventing animal motives.
Humor	Ask whether students find any lightness in the illustrations, while recognizing that humor is not required for this serious subject. Discuss how adding jokes could either welcome readers or distract from the ecological explanation.
Pause	Pause after an important consequence and invite students to point to the organisms involved. This gives them time to build the relationship mentally before the explanation expands.
Poetry / Poetic Devices	Listen for sound patterns or vivid phrasing in the actual text without assuming it is verse. Students can try an original alliterative habitat phrase, then decide whether it clarifies or distracts from meaning.
Repetition	Look for recurring ideas and any repeated wording that connect the stages of the explanation. Students can use a repeated causal frame in their own drafts while checking that each repetition adds new information.
Rhythm	Read one explanatory passage aloud and notice how sentence lengths shape the listening experience. Experiment with a short consequence sentence followed by a longer explanation.
Punctuation	Examine punctuation on a selected page and demonstrate how it groups information for the listener. Students can revise their captions so punctuation supports clear cause-and-effect reading rather than rushing.
Questions	Use the title’s hypothetical premise to generate questions about what tigers do in an ecosystem. Sort student questions into those the book answers and those requiring additional research.
Compare-Contrast	Compare a forest with its tiger relationships intact to the possible changes explored after tiger disappearance. Keep the comparison specific to relationships explained in the book rather than assuming all forests respond identically.
Objects	Select a visible habitat feature, such as a plant, and trace its connection to animals in the explanation. Show how something that appears to be background can be ecologically important.
Threes	As a teaching scaffold, organize three connected components: tigers, plant-eating animals, and plants. Explain that this is a simplified model, not a claim that the book or ecosystem follows a fixed rule of three.
Lists	Build a list of organisms and habitat components identified in the book, then turn the list into linked statements. Discuss why a connected explanation communicates more than a collection of names.
White Space & Negative Space	Examine how open areas and less-detailed spaces on selected spreads affect attention. Ask students where their eyes pause and whether that pause helps them absorb the ecological idea.
Art & Graphics	Read the illustrations alongside the text to identify organisms, habitat features, and relationships. Ask students to explain what a picture helps them understand that a caption alone might not convey.
Interactives & Gamification	Create a classroom 'trace the connection' challenge using cards based on the book; this is an extension, not a built-in interactive feature. Award success for explaining a supported relationship rather than for predicting catastrophe.
Placement	Notice where text sits in relation to the organisms or habitat being discussed. In student drafts, place captions close to the relevant image and test whether readers follow the intended sequence.
Form	Discuss why an illustrated, hypothetical explanation suits the subject of tiger disappearance. The picture-book form lets readers hold a whole habitat in view while considering one relationship at a time.
Dummy	Have students make a four-panel paper dummy before producing a finished explanation. Use it to check whether each turn introduces a necessary step and whether the most complex relationship has enough space.
Passion	Connect the book’s conservation focus to the choices writers make about subjects worth explaining. Invite students to choose one accurate fact or relationship that could help another person care about tigers.

Pace-Write It!

20-minute Pace-Write-Read task: 'One Tiger, Four Panels.' Minutes 0–3: Revisit a spread explaining a relationship involving tigers; identify the cause and possible effect. Minutes 3–6: Fold paper into four panels and plan a sequence: forest with tigers, tiger disappearance, a consequence supported by the book, and why protecting tigers matters. Minutes 6–12: Draw and write one or two sentences per panel, using linking language such as 'if,' 'because,' or 'as a result'; K–2 students may label, dictate, or rehearse orally. Minutes 12–16: Partners read the drafts aloud, pausing at each panel boundary and pointing out any missing connection. Minutes 16–19: Revise one panel to slow readers down with a shorter sentence, clearer picture, or extra open space, and qualify uncertain outcomes with 'could' or 'may.' Minute 19–20: Share one revision and explain how it helps readers understand the tiger’s place in the forest.

Classroom Activities

If Tigers Vanished: A Forest Chain Reaction

Students build a movable cause-and-effect model showing connections among tigers, plant-eating animals, and forest plants. They then turn their model into a short illustrated accordion book, using page turns, linking words, and a deliberate pause to help readers follow the consequences of tiger disappearance.