Category: Middle Grade Nonfiction

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STEM Friday #Kidlit Animal Allies

Chicago Review Press has done it again with their new middle grade/YA biography collection, Animal Allies: 15 Amazing Women in Wildlife Research by Elizabeth Pagel-Hogan .

What a fantastic idea to gather stories of women all with a common love for animals!

Elizabeth Pagel-Hogan has sorted the animals into five categories:  birds, arthropods, sea creatures, reptiles and amphibians, and mammals. Within each category, she has found three amazing female scientists who study those types of animals For example, Corina Newsome is saving seaside sparrows while Michelle LaRue uses satellites to study Antarctic birds. Lizzy Lowe takes on what many fear in researching spiders, and Erin Ashe lives out the dream of many studying dolphins and whales. Kristen Hecht chases the elusive hellbender amphibian while Enikö Kubinyi uses robots to get information on wolf pups.

As an entomologist, I went straight to the arthropod section. The first biography is of Dr. Corrie Moreau, who studies ants. She is currently working at Cornell University, where she is the curator of the insect collection. Corrie Moreau is passionate about ants, which comes across clearly in the text. We learn about her childhood, her education, about different aspects of the ants she studies (dracula ants!), and some of the pitfalls she encountered.

I love that Elizabeth Pagel-Hogan has included multi-sensory information, which pulls the reader right in. For example, we learn that Dr. Moreau can smell army ants and how Jasmin Graham feels standing out in the rain on a boat (headache and vertigo). Those are details you can’t get in an online search of a topic.

As for reading level, the suggested age is 12+, but mature middle graders will probably enjoy it as well.

Animal Allies is a must have collection for young readers who are interested in careers studying animals. It is also a wonderful choice for those interested in STEM, as well as nature lovers. Investigate a copy today!

Related:

Research more about the women who inspire you.

For example, the Bug Chicks –who are featured in Animal Allies — have a fun and educational series about insects on Vimeo.

You can get a feel for their somewhat offbeat approach in this video:

Then share what you find out with others!

Check our growing list of children’s books about women scientists at Science Books for Kids.

Reading age ‏ : ‎ 12 years and up
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Chicago Review Press (May 17, 2022)
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1641606223
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1641606226

 

Disclosure: This book was provided as an e-ARC by the publisher. Also, I am an affiliate with Amazon so I can provide you with cover images and links to more information about books and products. As you probably are aware, if you click through the highlighted title link and purchase a product, I will receive a very small commission, at no extra cost to you. Any proceeds help defray the costs of hosting and maintaining this website.

Come visit the STEM Friday blog each week to find more great Science, Technology, Engineering and Math books.

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#Womenshistorymonth #STEMkidlit Everyday Superheroes: Women in STEM Careers

For Women’s History Month we have a middle grade book that explores women who are making history, Everyday Superheroes: Women in STEM Careers by Erin Twamley and Joshua Sneideman.

Activity suggestion:

 

About the Book

Using the scientific method as a template, authors Twamley and Sneideman propose “six superpowers important to STEM fields”:

  • Imagination and curiosity
  • Observation
  • Problem solving
  • Collaboration
  • Data-collection and analysis
  • Communication

After defining each superpower, they use an alphabetical organizational structure explore 26 STEM careers, from Astronomy to Zoology.  In case you are wondering, they have to be creative with some of the letters, such as X is “Xeroxing Our DNA”  and the featured career is geneticist.

For each career, they give an overview of what it entails and then present a short biography of a particular woman in that field with emphasis on the superpowers they use.

Their choices are a diverse group of amazing women.

For example, A features Astronomer Wanda Diaz Merced

When Wanda Diaz Merced lost her sight, she developed a way to convert data into sound so she could analyze it. You can hear a sample of the sound in her TED talk below at about 5:40.

 

Wow! Talk about problem solving!

The illustrations are digital images created by the Illustrator Collective, a group of artists from around the world. This gives a sense of continuity that photographs from various sources would not have done.

The last section includes an activity for young readers to plan a STEM career of their own, a way to inspire and empower the next generation.

The back matter includes “Steps to Become an Everyday STEM Superhero”, a list other books by the authors, “Recommended Books”,  three pages of quotes from book reviews by educational experts (I’ve never seen this kind of promotional material in a children’s book before),  and a glossary, but no index.

If you are looking for examples of incredible women in STEM, then look no further than Everyday Superheroes.

Activity suggestion:

Check out these STEM Everyday Superheroes trading cards and then research and design one of your own (click on the researcher’s name to see the card).

Reading age : 8 – 12 years
Publisher : Wise Ink Creative Publishing (March 15, 2019)
ISBN-10 : 1634891988
ISBN-13 : 978-1634891981

 

Disclosure: The book was donated electronically for review purposes. Also, I am an affiliate with Amazon so I can provide you with cover images and links to more information about books and products. As you probably are aware, if you click through the highlighted title link and purchase a product, I will receive a very small commission, at no extra cost to you. Any proceeds help defray the costs of hosting and maintaining this website.

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Alphamaniacs Rule the Word

Today we have a tribute to word players and geniuses, Alphamaniacs: Builders of 26 Wonders of the Word by Paul Fleischman and illustrated by Melissa Sweet.

Writers and poets often play with words in creative ways, but Paul Fleischman has gathered a collection of examples of people who have pushed the language envelope into other realms.

Examples:

1. Creative Translations from Sight to Sound

Young scholars have spent long hours translating Latin text into English, so imagine their delight to discover some Latin words sound enough like English words to write prose that means one thing in Latin and a totally different thing in English when read aloud. This is called Dog Latin (link to Wikipedia page).

2. Concrete Poetry Makes Images

Mary Ellen Solt and other poets have used letters  and words to make visual art. Search for examples of Mary Ellen Solt’s concrete poetry, like a poem about forsythia shaped like a forsythia bush or a zinna.

Intrigued at the possibilities? The collection includes:

  • The developer of stylometry or the use of computers to analyze writing style to establish authorship for anonymous works
  • A man who wrote an entire novel without using a single letter e
  • An obsessive designer of fonts
  • The man who created a new language called Esperanto

Plus many more.

As an added benefit , the illustrations are by the innovative Melissa Sweet. The collage mixture of art and word is its own contribution.

Fleischman has assembled an astonishing set of examples. The books is easily browsable and introduces fascinating subject matter. The only shortcoming is that because of the sheer number of different people he covers, he can’t delve deeply into any one topic. Each one receives only a light, breezy mention. Time and time again I wished the descriptions gave more details. Let’s face it, any one of these could be a topic for an extended essay or even a book on its own. It does help he provides references for “Further Entertainment” in the back matter. I wish a glossary had been included as well.

Overall, Alphamaniacs is the perfect choice for mature middle graders to young adults who have a fascination with words and languages. Who knows what it might inspire from future word players.

Related activities:

1. Take some poetic license.

My family has been creating poems and riddles based on car license plates for years, but it turns out we weren’t the first. Daniel Nussbaum has translated well-known stories using records of vanity plates in his book PL8SPK.

 

If you spend way too much time in the car, you probably see vanity license plates every day. Here’s a challenge: Use license plates to inspire haiku-like poems. You can add words if you choose.

For example, these actual vanity plates:

  • LEOPARD
  • FLAWLESS
  • SILENCE

can be rearranged to become the poem

Flawless leopard
Stalks its prey
Silence

In a similar theme, the license plates

  • X3X
  • ANCHOVY
  • FORTUNA

with a little “poetic license” become:

Three anchovies
Four tuna
X anchovies
X tuna

Think about it.

One day I saw these two in the same parking lot:

  • 1Run100
  • GOOD4EWE

I run 100 K
Good for you

That is a a nicer pair than:

Be a duck…
Kabob

UBETCYA

 

To accompany:  Alphamaniacs: Builders of 26 Wonders of the Word
Age Range: 12 – 16 years
Publisher: Candlewick Studio (April 14, 2020)
ISBN-10: 076369066X
ISBN-13: 978-0763690663

Disclosure: The book was provided by my good friend Cassie. Also, I am an affiliate with Amazon so I can provide you with cover images and links to more information about books and products. As you probably are aware, if you click through the highlighted title link and purchase a product, I will receive a very small commission, at no extra cost to you. Any proceeds help defray the costs of hosting and maintaining this website.

Looking for more children’s nonfiction books? Try the Nonfiction Monday blog.

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#Nonfiction Monday Dr. Maggie’s Grand Tour of the Solar System

 

Today we are featuring the fun new upper-elementary book, Dr. Maggie’s Grand Tour
 of the Solar System by Dr. Maggie Aderin-Pocock 
and illustrated by Chelen Écija.

What to Expect from the Tour

Space scientist Dr. Maggie guides the reader around our solar system, supported by incredible visual elements.

First up we learn what a solar system is. From there we take off, discovering how astronauts  get into space. As we look back at Earth, we encounter some weird human-made space junk that orbits the Earth, including a spatula and a camera. Cool!

What do we encounter next? Well, the moon of course. Then off to the sun for an in-depth look at our nearest star that doesn’t require eye protection.  Moving away from the sun, we visit each of the planets (and their moons) in order, plus travel through the asteroid belt. Does the tour stop at planet Neptune? No, it continues on through the Kuiper Belt to the Oort Cloud and beyond.

Curious for more?

Check out the Kane Miller Website for a peek inside the book or take a look at this wordless trailer:

What’s best about this book is that readers can read in order for a clear, logical progression or they can browse sections for specific topics of interest. The sidebars also break the text into delicious readable chunks.

Dr. Maggie’s Grand Tour
 of the Solar System will enthrall budding astronomers and astronauts alike. Pick up a copy for the ride of your life.

Suggested Activities:

Check out our sister blog, Growing with Science, for activity suggestions inspired by the book.

Visit Science Books for Kids for a growing list of children’s books about the solar system.

Ages: 8+
ISBN:  978-1-68464-034-8

Disclosure: The book was provided by the publisher for review purposes.

Looking for more children’s nonfiction books? Try the Nonfiction Monday blog.