Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
Backpack Explorer: Rock Hunt (Storey Publishing, February 2023) is an engaging activity book for “rock hounds” on the hunt for rocks all around them. From the beginning of this photographic and colorful book, kids see creative ways to make STEAM come alive as they find and examine rocks. Rock Hunt provides stickers for marking pages
Lina, the main character in Finally Seen by Kelly Yang (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, February 2023) has grown up with her grandmother in China, while her young sister and parents have spent the last years living in California without her. Now it is her chance to move to the United States to
It’s fun when learning about a somewhat difficult scientific concept is put into context. Push-Pull Morning by Lisa Westberg Peters (Wordsong, February 2023) does for young children by showing a child and his dog as they jump and play together. The subtitle is “Dog-Powered Poems about Matter and Energy,” and anyone has a dog would
It is not often that I find a book that takes place in the Middle East, let alone a children’s book. The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye (Greenwillow, 2014) is a unique look into not just the culture and traditions of living in a different country but also the sweet geographic feature and
As a gorgeous oversized watercolor-and-ink illustrated picture book and poetic tributes, The Late, Great Endlings by Deborah Kerbel, illustrated by Aimee van Drimmelen (Orca Book Publishers, 2022) is a visual delight to peruse. Add to that the factual STEM-theme about extinct animals, and it’s also a necessary reminder that humans have a direct impact on
The Windeby Puzzle by Lois Lowry (Clarion, February 2023) is unlike any children’s book I’ve ever read before. With a mix of history and inventive storytelling, Lois Lowry tells of the young 2,000-year-old body discovered in a German bog, first by explaining the facts of what is known and then by inventing the story of
Jose Pimienta’s graphic novel Twin Cities (Random House Graphic, 2022) tells the story of twins that, for the first time, will attend two different schools: one in their home town of Mexicali, Mexico, and the other in a specialty school just over the US border in Calexico, California. As the two kids go through their
When my daughter (now 10) first got a tablet to use for various educational and entertainment purposes, she soon found the Wow in the World podcast by Mindy Thomas and Guy Raz. She loves the zany personalities of these voices and the podcast filled her random-but-educational science facts cravings. The book What in the Wow!?
I checked out Sallie Bee Writes a Thank-You Note by Courtney Sheinmel and Susan Verde, illustrated by Heather Ross (Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2022) from the library on a whim and now I don’t want to return it! Inn Sallie’s story, Sallie is so excited about her new scarf from her grandma that she
I’m Trying to Love Math by Bethany Barton is told in alternating black-and-purple fonts, and an unnamed narrator (assumed to be a human) and a purple alien have a discussion about math, with the alien pointing out all the ways that the narrator has used math in his explanations: such as fractions and ratios. Math is
Sir Circumference and the Dragon of Pi by Cindy Neuschwander, illustrated by Wayne Geehan. Sir Circumference is a silly story that uses finding pi as a solution to a problem: the Knight Sir Circumference has been turned into a dragon. Characters named Radius and Lady Di of Ameter help him by finding a potion with poetic instructions telling
Circles by David Adler, illustrated by Edward Miller. Adler’s book introduces circles and then describes a hands-on method of learning what a diameter and radius are (tracing a plate, then folding symmetrically and drawing lines). Subsequent pages continue the hands-on directions to draw and define major and minor sectors of a circle and how to draw
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