Category: Nonfiction Monday Review

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Inside Hurricanes Book Review

Inside Hurricanes by Mary Kay Carson is part of the Inside Series published by Sterling. These middle grade books come with ten fold out pages for extra big looks at the topic.

With hurricane season well under way, children are likely to be curious about these enormous weather systems. Readers soon learn that as Carson says, “Hurricanes are disasters that have called ahead to say they’re coming.”

Incorporating history and science, the author explains how hurricanes happen, what we know about them, and how they effect people. Scattered throughout are “I was there!” sidebars about real life experiences with hurricanes, which help children relate to these hard to imagine events.

The illustrations and photographs in the book are just plain amazing. Satellite images of hurricanes, photographs of trees bent in the wind, and photographs of the damage afterward will blow you away. Hurricanes are huge events and the photographs help give it scale and capture the destructive energy.

Inside Hurricanes has hands-on activities sprinkled throughout, including making a simple barometer, assembling a preparedness kit, and recording interviews of people who have lived through disasters.

If you are looking for an interesting and current look at hurricanes, this book is well worth consideration.

You know how much I enjoy hands-on activities. That’s why I have a related activity looking at how differently shaped buildings react to high winds at Growing With Science.

More about Inside Hurricanes:
Series: Inside Series
Publisher: Sterling
Published: October 2010
Age range: from 8 to 12
48 pages
ISBN: 1-4027-7780-9
ISBN13: 9781402777806

This book was provided for review.

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Frozen Secrets Gives Chills

Sally M. Walker’s new young adult book, Frozen Secrets:  Antarctica Revealed is sure to send shivers through its readers. Cutting edge science and spectacular photographs mixed with adventure and extreme hardships, it is a winning combination.frozen-secrets

Antarctica is not for the timid. The narration starts with the ill-fated journey of Robert Falcon Scott, who undertook an arduous trek across Antarctica only to find he missed being the first person to the South pole by 35 days. On the way back he and his team perished. Tragically, they were only 11 miles from a supply depot when they collapsed. This glimpse of history sets the stage for the hardships modern day explorers face in this land of extreme cold.

Like an explorer herself, Walker uncovers and discloses may aspects of the leading edge scientific research that is being carried out in Antarctica, from biologists and geologists to paleobotanists. Giant lakes under the ice? Dinosaur fossils in Antarctica? Who knew?

The photographs and illustrations are also spectacular. From actual photographs of Scott’s expedition as it set off (how did they get those?), to seals with sensors attached, to the amazing scenes of Antarctica’s snow and ice-covered splendor, you almost get the feel of a coffee table book. The text makes it much more than that, however.

In case you were wondering, Frozen Secrets is indeed a young adult book. From the story of tragedy at the beginning to photographs of frozen and decaying dead dogs, both the level of the text and the subject matter are belong solidly to the young adult category.

Sally Walker’s book Secrets of a Civil War Submarine: Solving Mysteries of the H.L. Hunley (reviewed here) won the Sibert. Her Written in Bone:  Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland was a finalist for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. It is a given that this book will be in contention for top awards as well. Pick up a copy when it comes out and you’ll see why.

Reading level: Young Adult
Library Binding: 104 pages
Publisher: Carolrhoda Books (October 1, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1580136079
ISBN-13: 978-1580136075

nonfictionmonday

Nonfiction Monday is a blogging celebration of nonfiction books for kids. For more information, stop by Anastasia Suen’s Nonfiction Monday page. This week’s post is at Rasco From RIF.

And next week, be sure to send your Nonfiction Monday posts here to Wrapped In Foil!

This book was provided for review.

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Lee Hopkins Makes Readers Smile with Amazing Faces

Amazing Faces compiled by Lee Bennett Hopkins will make you smile. It also will make you frown, sigh, and laugh out loud. This book of poetry is sure to evoke a range of emotions that are shared by all people, a range reflected in the diversity of radiant faces beautifully illustrated by Chris Soentpiet. Amazing-faces

Hopkins has assembled poems from an impressive list of authors, including Nikki Grimes, Jane Yolen, Janet S. Wong, and Joseph Bruchac. But the list of names fade away as the poems take center stage. Some are powerful, some are gentle, and some take your breath away. For example, about storyteller Aunt Mary Sky:

You can read so many things in her face
Like a cloud touched by a breath of wind
one shape, then another takes its place
as even the trees lean close and listen.

This book is really meant to be shared. Readers will want to discuss and ponder each poem and accompanying illustration. Although listed for ages 4-8, this inspiring collection is definitely appealing to a readers of a wide range of ages.

Teachers and librarians take note: you’ll want to have this one in within reach as a useful, multipurpose resource.

Reading level: Ages 4-8
Hardcover: 40 pages
Publisher: Lee & Low Books; 1 edition (June 30, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1600603343
ISBN-13: 978-1600603341

nonfictionmonday

Nonfiction Monday is a blogging celebration of nonfiction books for kids. For more information, stop by Anastasia Suen’s Nonfiction Monday page. This week’s post is at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

This book was provided for review.

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Wild Wild Alphabet

Wild Alphabet by Dan Green, with design by Mike Haines and paper folding by Julia Frohlich, is a pop-up book of cool animals and fun information that is sure to be “pop”-ular as a gift book. wild-alphabet

Dan Green has chosen some common animals to highlight, like the elephant and the hippopotamus, but also a few unusual ones like the narwhal and wallaby. Each two-page spread has the name of the animal, a photograph of the animal, a few facts about the animal written in an engaging way, and then a big bold capital letter with a black-and-white image that pops up or interacts with the letter kinetically. My favorite is the dinosaur, Utahrapter, which requires you to actually open the letter to see what is underneath.

Of course this book is designed to be engaging to young children, but I noticed the older ones like to take a peek too. If nothing else they try to figure out, “how did they fold that?”

To get a better idea of the book, here’s a very well-designed trailer. Isn’t the music fun?

What child wouldn’t enjoy the thrill of Wild Alphabet?

Reading level: Ages 4-8
Hardcover: 52 pages
Publisher: Kingfisher; Pop edition (September 14, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0753464721
ISBN-13: 978-0753464724

nonfictionmonday

Nonfiction Monday is a blogging celebration of nonfiction books for kids. For more information, stop by Anastasia Suen’s Nonfiction Monday page. This week’s post is at TheBookNosher.

This book was provided for review.