Review of Traveling Butterflies, by Susumu Shingu

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

traveling_butterflies_largeTraveling Butterflies

by Susumu Shingu

Owlkids Books, 2015. First published in Japan in 2012. 42 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a children’s nonfiction picture book that is simple enough for preschoolers. Yet it’s interesting enough for older readers, and the pictures are stunningly beautiful.

The story is of the migration of monarch butterflies. It shows their life cycle, then how very far they travel.

There’s a fascinating author’s note at the back. I didn’t realize that most monarch butterflies live only two to six weeks. But the generation of monarchs that migrates south, traveling nearly 2,500 miles, lives six to eight months. Interestingly, the butterflies that fly back north from Mexico to Canada don’t live any longer than the others — so it takes three to four generations of monarchs to fly back north.

This is a wonderful introduction to the story of these butterflies. I couldn’t stop looking at the beautiful and vivid paintings.

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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 Pink Is for Blobfish, by Jess Keating

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

pink_is_for_blobfish_largePink Is for Blobfish

Discovering the World’s Perfectly Pink Animals

by Jess Keating
with illustrations by David DeGrand

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2016.
Starred Review

Here’s a book that simply begs to be booktalked in the schools. All I will have to do is show some pictures. I don’t know if I’ll be able to attract kids who normally like pink, but I’m sure I’ll be able to attract those who enjoy unusual animals or like reading about disgusting ways of getting a meal.

As the book begins, “Think you know pink?”

It proceeds to feature sixteen bizarre animals — that happen to be colored pink. It gives the general information about the creature along with some of the more notable facts. All the animals have a photograph — the more cartoony illustrations go with the information about the animal.

The book begins with the blobfish, which was voted the ugliest animal in the world in a poll taken by the Ugly Animal Preservation Society. It continues through such animals as pinktoe tarantulas, pygmy seahorses, and Amazon river dolphins.

Did you know that orchid mantises look so much like flowers, insects will land on them more often than on actual flowers, when given a choice in a lab? Or that pink fairy armadillos have a special “butt plate” to compact the dirt when they dig tunnels? Or that hippopotamuses ooze a thick pink oil all over their skin to protect themselves from sunburn? Or that hairy squat lobsters catch their food in their hair?

This is a strange-animals book with one amusing characteristic in common. All of the strange animals in these pages are pink!

JessKeating.com
DeGrandLand.com
randomhousekids.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 Monkey Rescue, by Sandra Markle

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science 0

great_monkey_rescue_largeThe Great Monkey Rescue

Saving the Golden Lion Tamarins

by Sandra Markle

Millbrook Press, Minneapolis, 2015. 40 pages.

Here’s a nonfiction picture book about science – with a practical problem of saving an endangered species.

In the 1960s, scientists believed only about two hundred of Brazil’s wild golden lion tamarins were still alive. Their habitat was shrinking, and the ones in zoos were not having babies that survived.

This book tells the story of how that turned around. First, people learned more about their habits in the wild to help them live better in zoos. Then they learned how to successfully introduce zoo-born tamarins back to the wild.

A recent problem was that remaining forest habitats were in islands separated by cattle pasture, which tamarins couldn’t safely cross. Conservationists purchased land to plant a forest bridge between separate habitats, thus expanding their range.

This story is told in a much more interesting way in the book, accompanied by an abundance of pictures of the photogenic animals.

It’s a story about science and activism and hope – accompanied by adorably cute pictures! I’m already thinking I’ve got booktalking gold.

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 Headstrong, by Rachel Swaby

Biography, Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review, True Stories 0

headstrong_largeHeadstrong

52 Women Who Changed Science – and the World

by Rachel Swaby

Broadway Books, New York, 2015. 273 pages.
Starred Review

I was going to write that all parents of daughters should read this book. Then it occurred to me that this would be a fabulous book to hand to a teenage daughter. Then I realized that all educators should read this book. Finally, I realize that I think this is a book everyone should read.

Quick, name a scientist who was female and who changed the world with her work. Most people think of Marie Curie and draw a blank when they try to come up with any further names. Rachel Swaby specifically left out Marie Curie from this book. But she found 52 other women who did world-changing scientific work.

I heard Rachel Swaby speak at the 2015 National Book Festival. She was wonderful, so delighted and intrigued by the stories she’d uncovered about these amazing women. I checked out the book and since then have been reading one chapter a day. The fifty-two chapters are an easily digestible 3-4 pages, but highlight the way these women changed the world.

The author chose women who are already dead (“whose life’s work has already been completed”) and she leaned toward women who overcame obstacles, so these stories are inspiring as well as informative. She includes women who worked in the fields of medicine, biology, genetics, physics, geometry, astronomy, math, technology, and invention.

The Introduction explains why this book is so needed:

This book about scientists began with beef stroganoff. According to the New York Times, Yvonne Brill made a mean one. In an obituary published in March 2013, Brill was honored with the title “world’s best mom” because she “followed her husband from job to job and took eight years off from work to raise three children.” Only after a loud, public outcry did the Times amend the article so it would begin with the contribution that earned Brill a featured spot in the paper of record in the first place: “She was a brilliant rocket scientist.” Oh right. That.

The error – stroganoff before science; domesticity before personal achievement – is so cringe-worthy because it’s a common one. In 1964, when Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin won the greatest award that chemistry has to offer, a newspaper declared “Nobel Prize for British Wife,” as if she had stumbled upon the complex structures of biochemical substances while matching her husband’s socks. We simply don’t speak of men in science this way. Their marital status isn’t considered necessary context in a biochemical breakthrough. Employment as an important aerospace engineer is not the big surprise hiding behind a warm plate of noodles. For men, scientific accomplishments are accepted as something naturally within their grasp. . . .

We need not only fairer coverage of women in science, but more of it. . . .

As girls in science look around for role models, they shouldn’t have to dig around to find them. By treating women in science like scientists instead of anomalies or wives who moonlight in the lab as well as correcting the cues given to girls at a young age about what they’re good at and what they’re supposed to like, we can accelerate the growth of a new generation of chemists, archeologists, and cardiologists while also revealing a hidden history of the world.

By her own standards, Hertha Ayrton was a good scientist. So was the detail-oriented seismologist Inge Lehmann, and the firecracker neuroembryologist Rita Levi-Montalcini, too. The scientists in this book aren’t included because they were women practicing science or math in a time when few women did – although by that criterion, many would fit. They’re included because they discovered Earth’s inner core, revealed radioactive elements, dusted off a complete dinosaur skeleton, or launched a new field of scientific inquiry. Their ideas, discoveries, and insights made earth-shaking changes to the way we see the world (and that goes for the seismologist, too). . . .

So instead of calling every standout woman in science the Marie Curie of her field, the next time someone really lives for their work, let’s call them the Barbara McClintock of their specialty. If a scientist charts new territory, let’s refer to them as the Annie Jump Cannon of their particular exploration. If a researcher puts herself in physical danger for an experiment, let’s say she’s like any number of the scientists here who worked with radioactivity or mustard gas.

There are fifty-two profiles in this book. Read one a week, and in a year you’ll know whose research jump-started the Environmental Protection Agency, who discovered wrinkle-free cotton, and even whose ingenious score has now saved generations of struggling newborns. So little coverage has been dedicated to these scientists elsewhere that, in going through these profiles, I hope you’ll feel like you’ve gained a breadth of knowledge that rivals that of Salome Waelsch.

This book hit home to me because I was one of a small minority of women in a graduate mathematics department in the 1980s. It would have done me good to know that outstanding scientists and mathematicians who were women were nothing new at all.

And the book is interesting, too! Each brief biography begins with an intriguing paragraph and then gives you the rest of the story about these women who indeed overcame challenges and accomplished great things.

This book would be a fantastic place to start for novelists looking for actual historical characters with fascinating lives. I say this because I’ve already read a wonderful novel about one of the featured scientists, Sophie Kowalevski, Beyond the Limit, by Joan Spicci. I’m left wanting to know more about most of these amazing women.

Here are a few introductory paragraphs to get you intrigued:

Maria Sibylla Merian loved bugs long before scientists had uncovered their mysteries, loved them at a time when few people were interested in those vile, disgusting things. Acquantances assigned credit or blame for her unusual passion to her mother, who had looked at a collection of insects while Merian was still in the womb. Something about those pinned and polished bodies, shimmering powdery wings, and articulated legs instilled a fascination in the child growing inside her.

Two members of the division of war research at Columbia University spent an entire day grilling Chien-Shiung Wu about her work in nuclear physics. Regarding their own top-secret projects, the interviewers remained dutifully mum until the very end of the day, when they asked if Wu had any idea what they were up to. She cracked a smile. “I’m sorry, but if you wanted me not to know what you’re doing, you should have cleaned the blackboards.” They asked her to start work the next morning.

During the last two and a half decades of her 103 years, Italians liked to joke that everyone would recognize the pope, so long as he appeared with Rita Levi-Montalcini. Though she stood only five feet, three inches, the stories of her work and her life were as large and dramatic as her iconic sideswept hair.

Alice Hamilton’s professional successes – of which there were many – fell at the intersection of science and social issues. Although she earned a degree in medicine from the University of Michigan, gaining further training in bacteriology and pathology at the University of Leipzig and the University of Munich, she didn’t think herself capable of becoming anything more than a “fourth-rate bacteriologist.” But what she lacked in bravado, she made up for in her dedication to problems both “human and practical”: typhoid outbreaks, lead poisoning, and the widespread horror of occupational disease.

Learn the fascinating stories of these and forty-eight other women and along the way become better informed about history and better understand how capable women are and have long been at being scientists.

rachelswaby.com
broadwaybooks.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 Inventor’s Secret, by Suzanne Slade

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

inventors_secret_largeThe Inventor’s Secret

What Thomas Edison Told Henry Ford

by Suzanne Slade
illustrated by Jennifer Black Reinhardt

Charlesbridge, 2015. 48 pages.

This is an introductory picture book about the work of two great inventors, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. The overarching message of the book applies to any aspiring inventor: It’s what Thomas Edison told Henry Ford the night they first met: “Keep at it!”

The Author states in a note at the end (along with plenty of interesting backmatter):

For nonfiction authors a new story often begins with a fascinating, little-known fact that sparks a magical “goose-bump” moment. When I learned Thomas Edison, one of the greatest inventors of all time, pounded his fist on the table and shouted, “Keep at it!” to Henry Ford, that was one of those moments for me.

She weaves their stories together, with this meeting the central event. She used patent records to establish a timeline, and we get a taste, especially for Henry Ford, how much of his success was based on multiple attempts.

This is an entertaining story with cheery (but informative) and cartoon-like illustrations. But it also presents an encouraging message for future inventions. Follow your dreams. And don’t worry if your first several efforts don’t achieve success.

Keep at it!

suzanneslade.com
jbreinhardt.com
charlesbridge.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 8: An Animal Alphabet, by Elisha Cooper

Children's Nonfiction Review, Good for the Very Young, Picture Book Review, Science, Starred Review 0

8_large8

An Animal Alphabet

by Elisha Cooper

Orchard Books, New York, 2015. 36 pages.
Starred Review

Okay, this book is wonderful. For teaching about the alphabet, about counting (to eight!), about identifying multiple animals.

You get the concept of the concepts presented here right on the first page:

Find the one animal on each page that is pictured 8 times – 8 ants, 8 badgers, 8 chickens. Find all the other animals, too. Some may be familiar, such as a cat, and some not, such as a muskrat. (For help, see the “Did you know” section in the back.) But every animal is amazing and beautiful in its own way. Especially the hippopotamus. Let the exploring begin!

*Why the number 8? Because 8 is great. Because 8 is round and adorable. Because 8 is fun to count to (move over, 10). Because 8 is not too big, and not so small, but just right. Because 8 is my favorite number.

This is indeed a book for exploring. You can pretty quickly see on each page which animal is pictured 8 times, but it’s not a rubber stamp. The animal is pictured in 8 different poses, or perhaps even 8 different varieties of the animal. I grant you, the 8 ants aren’t terribly varied, but the 8 chickens include roosters as well as hens, the 8 goats include some kids, and the 8 moths and 8 newts come in many different colors.

As mentioned in the introduction, not all the animals are familiar. Some notable pages include:

Aardvark, abalone, albatross, alligator, alpaca, ant, anteater, antelope, armadillo

Camel, cat, caterpillar, chameleon, cheetah, chicken, chimpanzee, chipmunk, cicada, clam, cockroach, cow, coyote, crab

Panda, parrot, pelican, penguin, pheasant, pig, pigeon, platypus, porcupine, possum, puffin

Salmon, sandpiper, seagull, sea horse, seal, sea turtle, shark, sheep, skunk, sloth, slug, snail, squid, squirrel, starfish, swallow, swan, swordfish

The format of the book is the large and small letter in a corner of the page and the names of the animals at the bottom. The animals are all mixed up on the page, not necessarily to scale. These are paintings, not photos, but they’re lovely paintings, and you definitely get the idea. But the key in the back of the book will be needed.

So this is a good book for kids who like “Where’s Waldo” or any book of detailed pictures. I suspect it will take a few times through the book before parents know which animal matches every single name. And of course, one of the animals on each page shows up 8 times. So of course you will count them!

The key at the back has the heading “Did you know?” and each of the 184 animals in the book has a small picture and some facts about it. Here are some examples:

AARDVARK
Aardvarks are sometimes known as “ant bears.”

ARMADILLO
Armadillos spend almost eighteen hours a day napping.

BUTTERFLY
Butterflies taste with their feet.

DEER
Deer can see blue, yellow, and green, but not orange or red.

DUNG BEETLE
Dung beetles are able to tell which direction they are going from the position of the sun and the stars.

FERRET
A group of ferrets is called a “business.”

GIBBON
Gibbon couples start each day by hooting at each other.

GNAT
An evening swarm of male gnats is called a “ghost.”

LEMUR
Lemurs enjoy sunbathing.

OYSTER
A single oyster filters over forty gallons of water a day, cleaning water for other animal life.

RHINOCEROS
The skin of the rhinoceros is more than an inch thick.

VULTURE
Vultures poop and pee on their legs to keep themselves cool.

XERUS
Xeruses hold their tails over their heads to shade themselves from the sun.

YABBY
A yabby’s shell will match the color of the water it grew up in.

YAPOK
Yapoks have both webbed feet and stomach pouches.

Savvy parents probably won’t get started reading all 184 animal facts the first few times through the book. Pointing and naming and counting will keep you plenty busy.

This looks like a perfect book for my toddler-soon-to-be-preschooler nieces, or for anyone interested in exploring, naming, learning, and counting.

elishacooper.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 How to Swallow a Pig, by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science 0

how_to_swallow_a_pig_largeHow to Swallow a Pig

Step-by-Step Advice from the Animal Kingdom

by Steve Jenkins & Robin Page

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2015. 32 pages.

Here’s another amazing children’s science book by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. Again it’s illustrated with Steve Jenkins’ incredibly realistic cut-paper illustrations, which look so life-like.

This book encourages curiosity. There’s a lot of information on each page, with clear illustrations that draw the eye.

The gimmick for this book is the How-to format. The authors cover how animals do various unusual things, but told as a How-to book. Some of the steps won’t be easy for a kid to carry out!

For example, in Step 2 of “How to Build a Nest Like a Wasp,” “You’ll need to find a source of wood, such as an old log or unpainted fence. To make paper pulp, bite off a small piece of wood and chew it thoroughly, mixing it with your saliva.” And in Step 5 of the title piece, “How to Swallow a Pig Like a Python,” you’ll need to “unhinge your jaw (this takes practice). Starting with the head, begin to work the pig down your throat.”

Besides these, the other tasks the authors demonstrate and give step-by-step directions for include:
“How to Trap Fish Like a Humpback Whale”
“How to Sew Like a Tailorbird”
“How to Repel Insects Like a Capuchin”
“How to Woo a Ewe Like a Mountain Sheep”
“How to Crack a Nut Like a Crow”
“How to Build a Dam Like a Beaver”
“How to Disguise Yourself Like an Octopus”
“How to Hunt Like a Reddish Egret”
“How to Build a Nest Like a Wasp”
“How to Spin a Web Like a Spider”
“How to Decorate Like a Bowerbird”
“How to Warn of Danger Like a Vervet Monkey”
“How to Farm Like a Leaf-Cutter Ant”
“How to Catch a Meal Like a Crocodile”
“How to Defend Yourself Like an Armadillo”
“How to Catch an Insect Like an Ant Lion”
“How to Dance Like a Grebe”

All of these activities are given with fairly simple (but sometimes impossible for humans) numbered steps and eye-catching illustrations.

There are more details at the back about all the featured animals.

I think my favorite feature is “How to Crack a Nut Like a Crow,” because crows have clearly adapted their methods.

Crows are intelligent birds, and they have learned to crack nuts by carrying them into the air and dropping them on rocks or pavement. But, some nuts are too tough, and even this treatment won’t break them open. In some places, crows have found a solution.

It’s probably best not to try this technique until you learn how to fly.

1) Find a nut.
A walnut or other tough-shelled nut is a good choice.
2) Select your perch.
Find a spot near a traffic signal above a busy road.
3) Drop your nut.
Choose a place where the nut will get run over by a car or truck.
4) Wait for the light to change.
Don’t try to collect the pieces of your smashed snack until the light has changed and traffic has stopped.
5) Enjoy!
Now you can swoop down, eat your nut, and take off before the light changes again.

All the above is contained on one page, with an illustration for each step and a large picture in the middle. So it’s a nice nonthreatening mix of words and pictures.

Curious kids will get a kick out of imagining how it would be if they could carry out these directions.

stevejenkinsbooks.com
hmhco.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 Octopus Scientists, by Sy Montgomery

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

octopus_scientists_largeThe Octopus Scientists

Exploring the Mind of a Mollusk

Text by Sy Montgomery
Photographs by Keith Ellenbogen

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, 2015. 72 pages.
Starred Review

The Octopus Scientists is part of the extraordinary Scientists in the Field series. As with The Tapir Scientist, Sy Montgomery puts herself in the story, telling us all about her two-week visit with a team of octopus scientists, what they were studying, and what they found.

In this case, the team of four scientists was searching for octopuses – to study where they live, what they eat, and even their personalities (bold or more cautious).
Among other interesting facts I learned, it turns out that octopuses is correct, not octopi.

Though many people still use this plural, octopus experts deem it incorrect because it mixes up two languages. Octopus is a Greek word meaning “eight-footed.” Adding i to the end of a singular noun is a Latin practice. The correct plural is octopuses, or octopods.

Most of this book addresses the biggest challenge: simply finding the octopuses, who are experts at hiding. But the team is very successful, and besides scientific results and information, because of this Keith Ellenbogen got an abundance of colorful, stunning photographs of octopuses and other sea creatures in the crystal clear water among the coral reefs.

I love the way the books in the Scientists in the Field series show what actual scientists do – including days of fruitless searching. It includes the difficulties they encounter and the mixed results as well as the triumphs and the new information gained.

Along the way, readers learn a plethora of facts about octopuses, and these facts are told as background in an engaging story, so they won’t quickly be forgotten.

This book may well inspire many future marine biologists. And the rest of us will marvel at the intelligence and beauty of the humble octopus. I had no idea they can change color more effectively than a chameleon, yet are colorblind themselves. Or that they can figure out how to open different kinds of latches. Or… This is definitely a book you should read yourself to find out more.

sciencemeetsadventure.com
hmhco.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 I, Fly, by Bridget Heos, illustrated by Jennifer Plecas

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

i_fly_largeI, Fly

The Buzz About Flies and How Awesome They Are

by Bridget Heos
illustrated by Jennifer Plecas

Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2015. 44 pages.
Starred Review

This nonfiction for early elementary age kids hits just the right note.

A fly buzzes into a classroom and finds the kids studying — as usual — butterflies.

Well, guess who else metamorphoses, can fly, and is beautiful (at least according to my mother).

The fly goes on to explain:

Here’s how the story goes: My 500 brothers and sisters and I started out as eggs. Our mom tucked us into a warm, smelly bed of dog doo. When we hatched, we looked like short, greasy white worms. In other words, much cuter than caterpillars. Scientists called us larvae. Humans called us maggots. Our parents called us adorable.

He tells the kids all about the lifecycle of a fly and cool (or disgusting, depending on your viewpoint) facts about them as well.

My favorite bit is where a kid asks, “I heard that flies throw up on everything before they eat it. Is that true?”

No. We don’t throw up on everything. Only solid foods.

See, we don’t have any teeth, so we can’t chew. I had to throw up on this apple core to turn it into a liquid. That way I could sop it up with my spongy mouth.

But if something’s already a liquid, like the soup you’re having for lunch, I don’t throw up on it. I’ll slurp that right out of the bowl.

Of course, when the kids decide the fly is right and he should be studied, he finds he doesn’t actually want to be kept in a cage in the classroom. Then he tells them the facts about diseases flies carry so they’ll let him go.

Fortunately, readers of this book can learn all the facts the friendly fly has to tell them without making contact with its germs.

This one’s a natural for booktalking in the schools. Children will learn fly facts without even trying.

authorbridgetheos.com
jenniferplecas.com
mackids.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 Lost Animals, by Errol Fuller

Nonfiction Review, Science 0

lost_animals_largeLost Animals

Extinction and the Photographic Record

by Errol Fuller

Princeton University Press, 2013. 256 pages.

This is a fascinating book. The idea is simple: The author has compiled actual photographs of animals whose species are now extinct. There is information about each animal and details about when each one presumably died out.

In many ways, it’s a tragic book. Especially painful are pictures such as the one of a dead Yangtze River Dolphin taken with the hunter who shot it.

Mostly, the pictures are fascinating in themselves. As the author says in the Introduction:

It seems that a photograph of something lost or gone has a power all of its own, even though it may be tantalizingly inadequate.

nathist.press.princeton.edu

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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.

What did you think of this book?