Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
I Love My City by France Desmarais and Richard Adam, illustrated by Yves Dumont (Pajama Press, March 2023) is a nonfiction middle grade explanation and illustration of what makes a city a city. Given the increasing urbanization of the world (apparently 55% of people worldwide live in cities!), this book provides a much needed look
Breaking Through the Clouds: The Sometimes Turbulent Life of Meteorologist Joanne Simpson by Sandra Nickel, illustrated by Helena Perez Garcia (Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2022) teaches readers about an unknown young woman who went into a unique STEM field in the mid-1900s, this time the study of meteorology. Her interest in clouds began even
Whose Hands Are These?: A Community Helper Guessing Book by Miranda Paul is a picture book for guessing the community job pictured. It teaches about community helpers with rhymes and illustrations.
Tomorrowland by Steven Kotler (New Harvest, May 2015) is a collection of previously published essays about the new frontiers available in science. The subtitle suggests that the text provides examples of how science fiction has become “science fact.” I am not a scientist, so as I read, I found myself impressed with where humankind has
Kids Who Are Changing the World by Anne Jankeliowitch (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, September 2014) is an inspiring volume of brief biographies of young children from around the world who took action to fight for ecological awareness. The author shares how each child was inspired, what he or she did as a result, and the end result
Sometimes we take the most obvious things for granted. Like rocks, for instance. A Rock Can Be by Laura Purdie Salas and illustrated by Violeta Dabija (Millbrook Press, March 2015) shows all the ways that rocks are an important part of our world.
The world is so big, I can understand my son not understanding some concepts. I tried to explain the amount of snow that recently covered Buffalo, New York, and he just shook his head. How can he possibly understand the distance to the moon? The extent of the universe? If by David J. Smith and illustrated
The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires (Kids Can Press, April 2014) is a STEM book. (For those not in the “know,” as I was not until recently, STEM is educational slang for something relating to Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mechanics.) A creative girl heads out to make the “magnificent thing,” but cannot seem to get
When I was young, I wanted to write. I wish I’d found a book like Poetry Matters: Writing a Poem from the Inside Out by Ralph Fletcher (HarperCollins, 2002). In this book, Fletcher writes for kids, directly focusing on what poetry is and what young writers can do to learn to write it. I loved
First quarter 2012 has been spare on the blogging front, but it’s been busy and delightful on the home front from my perspective! Strawberry is now five weeks old, and Raisin and I are starting to settle in to a routine again of reading picture books. I’m reading Strawberry The Secret Garden aloud, and occasionally
In reading Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson, I’ve been intrigued by Einstein’s genius. Why is it we equate “Einstein” with “genius”? What made him so smart? It seems clear to me that, as Isaacson opines in his conclusion, Einstein’s genius was in his mind and not necessarily his brain. I am not
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