Review of Ernö Rubik and His Magic Cube, written by Kerry Aradhya, illustrated by Kara Kramer

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Ernö Rubik and His Magic Cube

written by Kerry Aradhya
illustrated by Kara Kramer

Peachtree, 2024. 36 pages.
Review written October 30, 2024, from my own copy, sent by the publisher.
Starred Review

Ernö Rubik and His Magic Cube is a picture book biography of the man who invented the Rubik’s Cube, especially focusing on the process that went into the invention.

I love the way the art in this book uses lots of squares and other geometric shapes, and the bright colors that show up on the cube.

Ernö grew up in Budapest, Hungary, and loved puzzles right from the start. The book shows him playing with tangrams, pentonimoes (shapes of five squares stuck together), and pentacubes (shapes of five cubes stuck together).

The book shows that later, as a teacher, he made three-dimensional models to teach his students. And then he wondered:

Would it be possible to build a big cube out of smaller cubes that moved around each other and stayed connected?

He decided to try it!

The book shows some of the things he tried first – for example, a four-by-four cube held together with paperclips and rubber bands. After he switched to twenty-seven cubes with nine on each face of the big cube, it took him days of thinking – and then a walk by a river gave him the thought of putting a round object in the center and getting the other twenty-six cubes to flow around it. (I love the way the illustrator portrays him walking around with a cube-shaped head as he was thinking about it!)

Once he figured it out, he put colors on the cubes’ surfaces and started playing with it. And that was when he discovered he had a puzzle. He was the first person who had to figure out how to solve it.

At the time the book was printed, more than 450 million Rubik’s Cubes have been sold worldwide. I remember when the phenomenon started – when I was just out of college – and I love that it’s still a wildly popular toy. In fact, last year, my niece showed me that she’d learned how to solve them. So this book about their inventor is all the more relevant to kids.

kerryaradhya.com
karakramer.com
PeachtreeBooks.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/erno_rubik_and_his_magic_cube.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The Fabulous Fannie Farmer, by Emma Bland Smith, pictures by Susan Reagan

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

The Fabulous Fannie Farmer

Kitchen Scientist and America’s Cook

by Emma Bland Smith
pictures by Susan Reagan

Calkins Creek (Astra Books for Young Readers), 2024. 40 pages.
Review written October 18, 2024, from my own copy, sent to me by the publisher.
Starred Review

The Fabulous Fannie Farmer is, yes, about the writer of cookbooks. What I didn’t know is that she was the one whose cookbook – first published in 1896 – established using standard measurements in cookbooks.

Here’s how the author puts it, talking about Fannie’s childhood:

If Fannie had asked, “How much salt should I put in this soup?” her mother might have answered, “Oh, a goodly amount.”

The reply to “And how much butter?” might have been “The size of a chicken’s egg.”

“How long should I cook it?”

“Why, till it’s done, of course!”

Women weren’t supposed to need exact measurements and instructions – cooking was all about feminine instincts, after all!

The book tells about Fannie’s life, her setback of being laid up for years because of polio, and her eventually finding a place at the Boston Cooking School, first as a student, then as an assistant, and eventually as the principal.

As a teacher at the Boston Cooking School, she continued to perfect her skills and learned – and taught – about the science behind cooking food. She eventually took on the project of rewriting the school cookbook, testing every recipe until she reached perfection.

A fun twist is that the publisher didn’t believe it would sell many copies, so they required Fannie to pay the cost of printing. She agreed, for most of the profits – which ended up being a great deal for her, as editions of the book are still in print more than a hundred years later.

Cookbooks have never been the same.

Here’s what the author says when she tells about Fannie enrolling in the Boston Cooking School:

Let us take a moment to be grateful. If she hadn’t enrolled, we might all still be tossing in carefree pinches of baking powder and crossing our fingers that our Boston cream pie wouldn’t come out flat as a pancake.

Thank you, Fannie Farmer! And thank you, Emma Bland Smith and Susan Reagan, for bringing her story to life.

emmabsmith.com
susanreaganart.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/fabulous_fannie_farmer.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Close Up & Far Out, by Mary Auld & Adria Meserve

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

Close Up and Far Out

Seeing the World Differently

story by Mary Auld and Adria Meserve
illustrations by Adria Meserve

Creative Editions, 2024. 40 pages.
Review written September 30, 2024, from a book sent to me by the publisher.
Starred Review

This is a nonfiction picture book featuring Galileo Galilei, born in 1564, and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, born in 1632. What the two men had in common was they both revolutionized science by making lenses that revealed wonders people had never seen before. Galileo made telescopes that enabled people to view the wonders of the heavens, and Antonie made microscopes that showed people the wonders of bacteria.

I like the way the authors tell about the lives in parallel – first getting the idea, then making and perfecting the lenses, then discovering amazing things, then trying to convince others and being met with skepticism. Eventually, Galileo was brought to trial for his ideas, but Antonie gained scientific acceptance. Still, this line at the end points out a contrast:

Antonie died famous and is now almost forgotten; Galileo died in disgrace but is now one of those most famous scientists that ever lived. But both men have changed how we understand the world.

The book ends with lists of things that were discovered because of each man’s work, and then these words of wisdom:

Both Antonie and Galileo remind us to ask questions, to look close up and far out for the answers, to question what we find again and again – and to be brave enough to think differently.

This large and lovely book tells an interesting story, but also gives insight onto how scientific discovery can work.

thecreativecompany.us

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/close_up_and_far_out.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Pizza Face, by Rex Ogle & Dave Valeza

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Graphic Memoir, Starred Review 0

Pizza Face

by Rex Ogle & Dave Valeza

Graphix, 2024. 222 pages.
Review written October 3, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

I continue to maintain that graphic novels are the absolutely perfect format for middle school memoirs – the perfect way to express the angst we all went through.

In this follow up to Four Eyes, the morning Rex starts seventh grade, a giant pimple erupts in the center of his forehead – the first of many. So yeah, this is a graphic novel about a boy beginning to go through puberty, and feeling behind everyone else – he was only twelve in seventh grade, but his friends were all thirteen or turning thirteen. So he was the smallest, had the least hair, and had the highest voice.

And then come the bullies, the misunderstandings with friends, the saying something to try to be cool that hurts a friend’s feelings – and we’ve got a classic story of middle school angst.

There’s plenty of nuance going on here, such as becoming friends with the biggest kid in seventh grade, who starts out pushing Rex around, but ends up confessing he feels out of place, too. And gaining some insight about another bully when they’re both on in-school suspension.

This story captures the despair and hope of middle school, and does it with humor and compassion.

rexogle.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/pizza_face.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The History of the Computer, by Rachel Ignotofsky

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Science, Starred Review 0

The History of the Computer

People, Inventions, and Technology That Changed Our World

by Rachel Ignotofsky

Ten Speed Press, 2022. 128 pages.
Review written September 24, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

This is the second one of Rachel Ignotofsky’s books I’ve read, and I’m a fan. Both are compilations of a large amount of information in a visual way that doesn’t overwhelm you.

The spreads in this book are packed, but the information is compacted into panel-like segments. The book is not a graphic novel, but it borrows some graphic elements, sometimes sidebars, sometimmes diagrams, plenty of pictures, and even some speech bubbles. Even large paragraphs are given segments with headings, so you can read one section at a time.

The only problem with the graphic-novel-like format was that my first impression was that I could read it quickly. No, this book is packed with information, and it takes lots of time to absorb it. The advantage to the format, though, is that you can read a section or a spread at a time and easily pick it up later. I ended up picking this book up for multiple short stretches – and that was the perfect way to read it, with my interest captured every time.

And the information was so interesting. I worked as a computer programmer for my university as a college student in the 1980s, and my family was one of the first I knew of to have a home computer, a TRS-80. Oh, and my Dad brought home an old-fashioned modem in the 1970s. So – I’ve lived through a lot of the history of the computer, and it was very interesting to read about the bigger picture and many of the people behind different innovations – going far beyond Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

Besides a straightforward history, the book also describes what’s inside a computer and goes back and looks at ancient counting systems and inventions like the abacus. The more modern chapters went from “Computers as Creative Tool, 1980-1989” to “The World Wide Web, 1990-2005” to “The All-in-One Device, 2006-Now.”

My only hope for this book is that it will get many updates. Although the part on “the future” only takes up a few pages, already in 2024 it feels like the prevalence of virtual meetings should be mentioned, as well as Chat GPT. But everything historical is very thorough, and presented in a fascinating way.

rachelignotofskydesign.com
tenspeed.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/history_of_the_computer.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Hello, Neighbor! by Matthew Cordell

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Hello, Neighbor!

The Kind and Caring World of Mister Rogers

by Matthew Cordell

Neal Porter Books (Holiday House), 2020. 40 pages.
Review written July 7, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

Hello Neighbor is a picture book biography telling about the life and career of Fred Rogers.

It begins with the Neighborhood – showing a hand placing a car in the model neighborhood and explaining about the television show. Then it goes back and tells about Fred Rogers’ childhood and what brought him into doing television.

I like the way the book captures special things about the show, including the beginning and ending songs, the cast of characters, the special guests, the visits that showed how things were made, and of course the Neighborhood of Make Believe.

Fred played many roles in the making of more than 900 episodes of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. He wrote the scripts. He was songwriter and singer, performer and puppeteer. He oversaw and approved what went on in every episode. Beyond his own contributions, he truly loved working with others. He respected and appreciated the talents and artistry of all who were involved in the creation of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. And because of this, everyone felt connected in a very sincere and personal way.

The illustrations along with the story help make this book special, as they capture so many scenes and people from the show. The spread at the beginning is especially wonderful with a quotation from Fred Rogers on top and a picture of him sitting at the piano composing, with all kinds of characters and things flowing out of the piano in a big creative cloud along with musical notes.

A lovely tribute to a man who was indeed kind and caring, put together in a way that respects and appreciates children. I am confident that Mister Rogers would have been delighted with this book.

matthewcordell.com
HolidayHouse.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/hello_neighbor.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Crossing on Time, by David Macaulay

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Crossing on Time

Steam Engines, Fast Ships, and a Journey to the New World

by David Macaulay

Roaring Brook Press, 2019. 128 pages.
Review written May 6, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

This new large-format David Macaulay book is amazing. Full of his detailed illustrations, it tells the story of steam travel, combined with his own story of crossing the Atlantic and moving to America aboard what was then the fastest ocean liner in the world.

This story of his own family making the trip when he was ten years old gives a deeply personal touch to a book packed with historical facts.

After the short introduction of his family setting out to move to America, where he planned to see the Empire State Building, then the tallest building in the world, the book tells us the history of steam power. And since this is a David Macauley book, along every step of the way we get diagrams explaining precisely how the various steam engines worked. We can appreciate each new innovation and how it expanded on earlier ideas.

Then we get into steamships, and the race to build faster and faster ships to cross the Atlantic. We see all the ships that won the Blue Riband – an award for the ship with the fastest time crossing the Atlantic in the westward direction. We also hear about a shipbuilder who dreamed of winning that award.

And then we shift to that shipbuilder finally getting a chance to build an enormous ocean liner, the em> United States that would indeed win the Blue Riband. There is an incredible fold-out cross-section of United States that spreads out to six pages long and has 100 items detailed in the diagram.

The United States was the very ship that took young David Macauley and his family from England to America, so the book finishes bringing us back to his story. I especially like the paintings from their voyage and the photographs in the notes in the back.

This wonderful book is packed with information and leaves you with warm feelings about the curious kid who grew up to create amazing books.

mackids.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/crossing_on_time.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of A Million Dots, by Sven Völker

Children's Nonfiction Review, Mathematical, Starred Review 0

A Million Dots

by Sven Völker

Cicada Books Limited, 2019. 44 pages.
Review written March 24, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

Now you and your kids can both explore exponential growth!

The first spread of this book shows the numeral 1, the word one, and one dot – in this case, the graphic artist has made it the top of a tree.

The next spread: 1 + 1 = 2, two, and two green treetop-dots.

The next spread: 2 + 2 = 4, four, and now the dots are smaller, four red apples.

Each time you turn the page, the number of dots you can see doubles and the dots get smaller. And the artist makes pictures out of them. The picture on the front cover with dots as freckles is the picture for 256.

When it gets to 524, 288, it takes a long fold-out page to show all the dots, even though they’re very small, and they’re even smaller on the other side with 1,048,576 dots.

I love the idea of this, because I’m a firm believer that people simply don’t understand how big a million is. In fact, I’ve got a little problem with using the 256 picture on the cover, because children might think that’s a million dots. And once it does show a million, the dots are so small my old eyes aren’t even sure which parts of the picture are dots and which aren’t. You couldn’t really explain it from the front of a room in storytime.

So for storytimes, I still prefer How Many Jelly Beans?, by Andrea Menotti, which also has a fun story to go along with the big numbers. But for kids to explore and wonder over the numbers by themselves or in small groups? This book is marvelous.

And this is a good time to try to understand that when you’re talking exponential growth, numbers get big very, very quickly.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/million_dots.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Gross as a Snot Otter, by Jess Keating

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

Gross as a Snot Otter

Discovering the World’s Most Disgusting Animals

by Jess Keating
with illustrations by David DeGrand

Alfred A. Knopf, 2019. 44 pages.
Review written April 10, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

Jess Keating’s books from The World of Weird Animals series are the easiest books in the world to book talk! I used Pink Is for Blobfish back in 2016. I’d ordered Gross as a Snot Otter to booktalk this year, but didn’t actually get around to reading it until the library closed for the coronavirus. I was right! It will be perfect for booktalking. I hope I get the chance to do so at least next year! (Spoiler alert: this didn’t happen.)

All you have to do to intrigue kids with this book is open to a random page and read off the facts about the disgusting animal featured there. In some cases, the animals themselves aren’t as gross as a snot otter, but in those cases, they have some kind of disgusting habit.

Take herring, for example, who communicate with each other by farting. Or Siberian chipmunks, which gnaw on the flesh of dead snakes and rub it onto their bodies so they smell like the predator. Or Surinam toads, whose mothers incubate their eggs on their backs – growing skin over them. Later, up to 100 toadlets at a time come popping out of her back.

Each spread has a photograph of the gross animal on one side, then facts about the animal with a silly cartoon on the other, with more of an explanation of what’s gross about them. This book is a sure kid-pleaser and will arm them with a plethora of weird scientific facts about a wide variety of animals.

JessKeating.com
DeGrandLand.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/gross_as_a_snot_otter.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Look for the Math Around You, by Alice Aspinall

Children's Nonfiction Review, Mathematical, Starred Review 0

Look for the Math Around You

Arrays
Estimation
Fractions
Geometry
Math Chats
Patterns

by Alice Aspinall

Code Breaker, 2020. Each volume 56 pages.
Review written December 13, 2022, from library books.
Starred Review

I’m reviewing a series of six books with this post. I’m super proud that I found these for the library and just got a chance to read them myself. They’re even better than I’d hoped!

What these books present is a wonderful opportunity for mathematical conversations for adults to have with kids as young as Kindergarten through 4th or 5th grades. They’ve got questions that made me think, and they model mathematical thinking.

Every book begins with a page that says this:

This book features photos taken from everyday, real-life moments. Use the photos as prompts to start a math conversation with children. Each photo is accompanied by optional question prompts. In some cases, there are many correct answers. The thinking process and mathematical discussion are more important than the correct answers. Have fun!

I read that in the first book, and right away my heart responded with a “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

I’ll include some example questions from the different books:

From Arrays, next to a photo of a garage door:

How many rectangles are in this photo? Look closely.
Explain how you counted them.

From Estimation, next to a photo of popcorn in a bowl:

There are two kinds of popcorn in the bowl. How would you describe how much of each kind is in the bowl? Think about using:
–Numbers
–Fractions
–Percentages
–Words

From Fractions, next to a photo of an uncut pan of brownies:

The brownie needs to be shared with 8 people.
Show the different ways you can cut the brownie so that all 8 people get the same amount of brownie to eat.

From Geometry, next to a photo of an orange slice, first in a circle and then pulled into a line:

The orange slice shows the parts of a circle. The circumference is the peel, wrapping all the way around the outside of the circle. The area is the flesh of the orange. Point to each part of the circle.

When we pull apart the orange slice, we can see the parts of the circle in a different way. How many segments can you count?

What do you think is the length of the circumference of this orange slice? How do you know?

From Math Chats, next to a photo of a fire pit with marshmallows toasting:

How far away should the marshmallow be from the fire for the best roast?
In what direction do you rotate your skewer to toast the marshmallow?
How much of the marshmallow do you like covered in char?
What ratio of cracker to chocolate to marshmallow makes the best s’more?
How many pieces of chocolate do you like in a s’more?
What pattern do you use to assemble a s’more?

From Patterns, next to a photo of a pie with a lattice top:

How is the pie crust arranged? Use words to explain how all the pieces are weaved together.
What other patterns can you find on the pie? Look for shapes.

That should give you the idea. The books are loaded with interesting photographs accompanied by open-ended questions that encourage mathematical thinking. And because the questions are open-ended, your child may surprise you!

You can find all these books in the Fairfax County Public Library catalog if you search for “Look for the Math Around You.”

everyonecanlearnmath.com
codebreakeredu.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Arrays
Estimation
Fractions
Geometry
Math Chats
Patterns

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/look_for_the_math_around_you.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?