Review of Among a Thousand Fireflies, by Helen Frost and Rick Lieder

Animal Characters, Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Science 0

Among a Thousand Fireflies

poem by Helen Frost
photographs by Rick Lieder

Candlewick Press, 2016. 28 pages.

This story is simple. What makes it amazing are the photographs.

We meet one firefly among thousands. She finds her match by the pattern her lights flash.

Across a distance
wide and dark,
she looks out from
her flower
and sees –

Light. Dark.
Light. Dark.

Inside the flower,
her light flashes back,
pulsing through the night.

Here I am. She sends a silent call.
Over here.
Look! I’m here.

As I said, it’s a simple dramatization of a firefly finding its mate through the pattern of its flashes. But who knew that pictures of fireflies could be so stunning? I especially like the way her light lights up the flower she’s sitting on.

It’s simple. It’s short. But it will make you look twice. And it will help you notice the wonder of fireflies on the next summer night.

Mind you, kids are already good at noticing such things. I think this book will validate their wonder. And it may start a conversation about the science of fireflies, with some simple notes (so parents will know what they’re talking about) at the back of the book.

candlewick.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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.

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Review of Emu, by Claire Saxby, illustrated by Graham Byrne

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

Emu

by Claire Saxby
illustrated by Graham Byrne

Candlewick Press, 2015. 30 pages.
Starred Review
Review written in 2016

Wow! This is a science picture book — telling about emus and how they raise their young — and the artwork is simply stunning.

There are two threads to the text. The story part begins like this:

In the open forest, where eucalyptus trees fringe tufty grasslands, honey-pale sunshine seeps to where Emu sits on a nest. Beneath him are eight granite-green eggs. Yes, him. For in Emu’s world, it is the male’s job to raise the fledgling.

On each spread, we get about that much more of the father emu’s story, as well as a paragraph of straight facts about emus.

The emu we’re following sits on his nest for eight weeks, without eating. He defends the eggs and then the fledglings from various predators. We watch the chicks grow until they are almost as tall and striking as their father.

The facts are good and the Australian setting makes them all the more interesting. Having the story of one family of emus alongside the facts is helpful. But what makes this book truly exceptional are the strikingly beautiful paintings. This book is a joy to leaf through.

This is another book I plan to booktalk in some elementary schools for this summer. It’s always a treat to find nonfiction that will draw kids in. That emu staring out from the front cover beckons kids to find out more.

candlewick.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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.

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Review of Experimenting with Babies, by Shaun Gallagher

Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 2

Experimenting with Babies

50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform on Your Kid

by Shaun Gallagher

A Tarcherperigee Book (Penguin Random House), 2013. 205 pages.
Starred Review

I discovered this book when it was new to our library, and I’ve been reading it very slowly – just one experiment per day, if that – but lately I’m enjoying it so much, I’ve been telling every parent and grandparent I know about it. I would have had so much fun with this book back when I was a big sister with many younger siblings in the house to experiment on! (I was 3rd of 13. Though they weren’t all in the house at the same time, I’ve been around babies a lot. They are super fun to experiment on!)

Here’s the idea: The author has taken serious science experiments that psychologists have tried on babies and tells parents how to adapt them and try them on their own kid. The experiments start with newborn reflexes and progress to experiments with language and following instructions for toddlers.

One thing I love about the book is that the experiments are not designed to tell you if your child is ahead or behind their agemates. The experiments are simply a fascinating look at human development in general and your baby in particular.

There’s really a wide variety of experiments. Let me describe a few of them – but consider this simply a random selection, and it will tend toward the older end of the experiments. (The beginning ones have to do with those fascinating infant reflexes.)

For example, one experiment has you ask two friends to greet each other in front of the baby. But then you do it again, later, but the second time, they greet each other with their backs turned to each other. The fascinating research is that 9-month-olds don’t react any differently to one or the other – but when researchers tried this (with a video) on 10-month-olds, they looked longer at the one with their backs turned. Somewhere in that time frame, babies figure out that people usually look at each other during social interaction.

I thought this one was really funny. For a child around 13-15 months, you put a toy on the table in front of you that you can activate with your head (causing some sort of light or sound). Then you put it in front of the baby, and see if they will activate it with their head or with their hands. The fascinating thing is that if you do it showing that your hands are full, the baby is less apt to use their own head to turn the toy on than if you do it with your hands empty and available. The baby seems to reason that the only reason you used your head was because your hands were full. But if your hands were free and you used your head anyway – then turning it on with your head must be what you’re supposed to do!

So those are the sort of silly experiments you’ll find here – silly but enlightening. Reading them really made me want to try them out on babies. (These are completely perfect Big Sister activities, but maybe I can convert them into Auntie activities.)

Human development is fascinating, and these experiments give you a little window into how your child is growing and changing and learning.

[And look at that! He’s got a new book coming out in April: Experiments for Newlyweds.]

ExperimentingWithBabies.com
tarcherperigee.com
penguin.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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.

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Review of Animal Ark, photographs by Joel Santore, words by Kwame Alexander

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

Animal Ark

Celebrating our Wild World in Poetry and Pictures

photographs by Joel Sartore
words by Kwame Alexander
with Mary Rand Hess and Deanna Nikaido

National Geographic, 2017. 40 pages.
Starred Review

At the back of this book, the photographer tells us:

At its heart, the Photo Ark was born out of necessity.

I have been sent around the world by National Geographic magazine for more than 20 years to take photographs of people, places, and animals. There have been assignments to capture images of the fiercest predators, the shyest sea creatures, the most beautiful birds, and so many more. Several years ago, I started to see that people weren’t paying much attention to the fate of all the other species we share this planet with. Without action, and soon, I worried that many animals could go extinct.

The Photo Ark is my answer to this. By introducing the entire world to thousands of photographs of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and even insects, I hope we can get everyone following, liking, texting, tweeting, and even talking about this wondrous world of ours.

In the Photo Ark, every creature is equal. I use simple black and white backgrounds, which make all animals appear to be the same size, no matter how large or small they might be in the wild. Each photo also shows you the amazing detail of a creature’s scales, skin, or feathers; their eyes, antennae, or legs – each creature with its own kind of stunning beauty. A slippery minnow in the Photo Ark appears as big as a shark, and a tiny tiger beetle as impressive as a mighty tiger.

I want people around the world to look these animals in the eye, and then fall in love with creatures as dazzling as a pheasant or as odd as an octopus. And once we love something, won’t we do anything to save it?

The highlight of this book is Joel Sartore’s stunning photographs of 32 of these creatures. But they’ve been paired with Kwame Alexander’s poetry to make a powerful picture book and bring these animals to young readers. The poet chose haiku as the form to create a potent message and create instant connection with the reader.

I can’t emphasize enough how striking these images are against their black and white backgrounds. Of course, I got to hear Kwame Alexander perform some of these poems with the images flashed up on a screen. Unforgettable!

This is a book you need to experience for yourself.

KwameAlexander.com
nationalgeographic.com
ngchildrensbooks.org
nationalgeographic.org/projects/photo-ark/

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Source: This review is based on a book I received at an ALA conference and had signed by the author.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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.

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Review of The New York Times Book of Physics and Astronomy, edited by Cornelia Dean

Nonfiction Review, Science 0

The New York Times Book of Physics and Astronomy

More Than 100 Years of Covering the Expanding Universe

edited by Cornelia Dean
foreword by Neil Degrasse Tyson

Sterling, 2013. 557 pages.

This book takes an excessively long time to read, but it’s so interesting. I began by alternating reading from it and reading from The New York Times Book of Mathematics. That took way too long — so I read the math book first, then worked on this one.

This book is made up of actual articles about advances in Physics and Astronomy, taken from the pages of The New York Times. I read an article per day most days — for a very long time.

My one strong recommendation is that for each article, you look at the end of the article to find out the date it was written, so you know if you’re reading about current developments in physics or old news. I was surprised how early some things were discovered.

Because this is from the pages of the newspaper, all the articles are written with a general audience in mind, and so are basically understandable. It gives a nice overview of the progress of physics in the last century or so.

Chapter titles give you an idea of the scope of this book (each chapter is a collection of many articles): “The Nature of Matter,” “The Practical Atom,” and “The Fate of the Universe.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson says of the journalists who wrote these articles, “And I also came to see their telling of this timeless and epic adventure of cosmic discovery as a kind of time-capsule-in-the-making — a chronicle of our species’ search for how the universe works and what our place within it might be.”

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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 I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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.

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Review of Inside Your Insides, by Claire Eamer

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science 0

Inside Your Insides

A Guide to the Microbes That Call You Home

written by Claire Eamer
illustrated by Marie-Ève Tremblay

Kids Can Press, 2016. 36 pages.

Here’s an easy-to-understand guide all about the microbes that live in your microbiome.

I was impressed, because the terminology and the knowledge is different than when I was a kid. The book talks about good bacteria and bad bacteria – but also talks about several other kinds of microbes, including archaea, viruses, fungi, protists, and mites.

The book is illustrated with large cartoons, and has many “Did You Know?” spots on the sides, as well as silly jokes punning on “cell” or “germ.” It’s clearly written and informative, and I was somewhat embarrassed by how much I learned.

The final page has some applications. It’s no longer a simple “Wash your hands,” or “Cover your mouth when you cough.”

If you want to attract lots of different microbes to your microbiome – and generally, you do – here are a few steps you can take. Play outside. Explore the natural world. Keep pets. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. All of these activities will add variety to your microbiome and help it stay balanced and healthy….

Scientists are looking at ways to encourage the growth of microbes that are good for us. They even hope to find ways to cure diseases by restoring healthy microbiomes in people. But it’s complicated. Everyone has a different microbiome, and the difference is big between people who live in very different parts of the world or live different kinds of lives. Besides, not all microbes are friendly. It isn’t easy to figure out which ones will live together well and which won’t.

Still, researchers are working on some interesting ways to improve your microbiome or fix it if something has gone wrong. How about a cream that nourishes the helpful bacteria on your skin? Or foods that nourish the good bacteria in your gut and encourage new microbes to settle there?

An informative and interesting look at the tiny creatures that call you home.

www.kidscanpress.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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.

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Review of Penguin Day, by Nic Bishop

Animal Characters, Children's Nonfiction Review, Picture Book Review, Science, Starred Review 0

Penguin Day

A Family Story

by Nic Bishop

Scholastic Press, 2017. 32 pages.
Starred Review

Nic Bishop’s stunning photographs make this book stand-out. It’s a simple picture book about the life of a baby rockhopper penguin – but the illustrations are clear photographs taken in the wild.

The language is simple. Here’s how it starts.

Morning has come and baby penguin is hungry. Baby penguin is too little to get breakfast, so mama penguin will go hunting.

Papa penguin will stay behind to keep an eye on the little one.

We see mama penguin’s hunting trip, and we see baby wander off but get protected from a hungry skua by papa penguin.

Clear, beautiful photographs illustrate the whole journey.

The short note at the back says:

The author spent three weeks photographing rockhopper penguins for this book. Severe gales and freezing temperatures often made things difficult for him but never daunted the penguins. Every day they ventured into stormy seas and climbed home over tall cliffs, meeting each challenge with feisty determination. More than one chick and its parents were photographed to make this book.

A fantastic introduction to nonfiction for littlest listeners and readers. This book would work well in a storytime, as well as for a young child beginning to be interested in the natural world, as well as for an older child who likes penguins.

nicbishop.com
scholastic.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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.

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Review of The Search for Olinguito, by Sandra Markle

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science 0

The Search for Olinguito

Discovering a New Species

by Sandra Markle

Millbrook Press, Minneapolis, 2017. 40 pages.

The Search for Olinguito is a fascinating story, telling about how scientist Kristofer Helgen suspected and then confirmed that there was a new species in the raccoon family.

Kristofer was studying another mammal, the olingo. He worked for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. In 2002, he was looking at samples of pelts and skulls from olingos in different regions – and found one completely different from the others.

This animal had a different shade of fur, a different skull shape, and larger, pointier teeth. He went looking in other museums and found five similar samples.

The next step was to check the DNA – yes this new animal had different DNA, and the samples found were similar. He named the new animal “olinguito.”

But then the question arose: Do olinguitos still exist? Could researchers find them in the wild?

The search led first to a zoo. In the 1960s, the Louisville Zoo had tried to start a breeding program with olingos. But the female olingo, Ringerl, that they brought in would never choose a mate. They sent this supposed olingo to various zoos, but she never did produce any babies. Kristofer checked her DNA from a sample in the National Institutes of Health database, and she was indeed an olinguito.

So – they decided to search in the habitat where Ringerl was originally found, the cloud forest. That put them on track to finally discover olinguitos in the wild.

Naturally, the locals knew about these creatures and called them “night monkeys.”

When they tried to publish a paper about the new species in a journal in 2006, they were told they still needed more information about its physical traits and behavior. So from 2006 to 2011, scientists gathered more data.

A report was finally published in the journal ZooKeys on August 15, 2013. That day Kristofer also officially announced the olinguito to the world at a press conference.

This book is illustrated with photographs and a few maps. The text is simple enough for upper elementary age kids to understand easily. There are some questions posed in the back matter with the heading “Be a Science Detective!” One of the questions is, “After reading this story, why do you think even the people living near the cloud forest didn’t know much about the olinguito’s life?”

I like the way this shows a true and recent story of a scientist at work. There are cute animal pictures, too!

lernerbooks.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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.

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Review of The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk, by Jan Thornhill

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

The Tragic Tale of the Great Auk

by Jan Thornhill

Groundwood Books, 2016. 42 pages.
Starred Review

This picture book, by focusing on one extinct species, is an accessible and understandable introduction to the need for conservation.

The book begins:

Behold the Great Auk! The Gejrfugl! The northern penguin!

Less than four centuries ago, hundreds of thousands of these magnificent birds lived in the frigid seas between Europe and North America.

Now there are none.

So what happened?

It’s a complicated story. Although humans – as you may suspect – did indeed have a heavy hand in the Great Auk’s extinction, there were other factors that contributed to its demise, not the least of which was the bird’s own anatomy and behavior.

The story is told beginning from when the Great Auk thrived. They couldn’t fly, and could barely walk, but could swim swiftly. They live mostly on and in the water, but they had to lay their eggs on land. So they protected their young by nesting in inaccessible places.

I thought this tidbit was fascinating:

During the last Ice Age, when much of northern Europe and most of Canada lay frozen beneath a half mile of ice, the oceans were colder, so the Great Auk was found further south. Five thousand years before the glaciers retreated, a group of Stone Age humans entered a cave not far from the Mediterranean. They mixed charcoal and red-ochre pigment into paint, then used crude brushes and their fingertips to make images of the animals they hunted.

They painted ibex and bison. They painted wild horses and big-antlered deer.

And they painted Great Auks.

Paleontologists have found other signs that early humans enjoyed eating fire-roasted Great Auk just as much as we enjoy eating barbecued chicken today. Numerous tool-marked remains of the bird’s big bones have been unearthed from ancient fire pits and trash heaps on both sides of the Atlantic, up and down the coasts. Some charred bones are almost ninety thousand years old.

As humans developed better and better seafaring abilities, the places where Great Auks could nest safely dwindled.

Though the final last straw, sadly, happened in 1830 when a volcanic eruption caused one of their last nesting grounds to disappear under the sea.

The book explains the whole story with colorful pictures, including the danger that came from collectors as well as those who wanted to eat the birds. In many of the pictures, the Great Auk is only present in a ghostly outline form, where they were once numerous, but now are nowhere to be found.

The book finishes with the birth of the conservation movement. Here’s hoping the tragic tale of the Great Auk will not be lived out by many other species.

groundwoodbooks.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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.

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Review of The Great Leopard Rescue, by Sandra Markle

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

The Great Leopard Rescue

Saving the Amur Leopards

by Sandra Markle

Millbrook Press, Minneapolis, 2017. 48 pages.
Starred Review

This is an ideal elementary-level science book for kids. Lots of beautiful photographs of the striking Amur leopards, the history of these big cats, and a look at how scientists are trying to save them from extinction.

The story covers decades – Amur leopards have been endangered for a long time – but it’s also very immediate. This year – 2017 – there is a plan to ensure new leopard cubs are born on the taiga.

The plan is elaborate – the parents will be Amur leopards chosen from zoos. Two pairs of leopards will give birth in two huge pens, where they will stay for two years until the cubs are ready to hunt on their own. This is to establish a second wild population, in case any disaster should befall the remaining wild population living on the recently established Leopard Reserve.

It’s all very interesting and lavishly illustrated with photographs. Perfect for animal lovers and science lovers both.

lernerbooks.com

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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 I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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?