Daddy Mojo used to teach. Being an ex educator he’s interested in many things about education, such as teaching policies, best practices and bureaucracy.
Plastic Sucks! aims to be a middle elementary through middle school primer on plastic and its impact on the environment. In some ways it squarely hits the objective and for some young readers this will be the go-to book that will start their eco-interests. Let’s break down the book and see if it’s the polymer that will bond your young one to learning more about a substance that we use every day.
Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier is Science Comics by another name. Science Comics is the line of educational and entertaining graphic novels on :01 First Second Books. This isn’t technically a Science Comics book, but it has all of the hallmarks that make those books so worthwhile. Astronauts focuses on the women in space, the resistance to them being in the program, which countries led the way and a small overview about space missions and training.
Suddenly everyone’s a school teacher, and I mean that in the highest form of a compliment. With most school age children at home doing virtual learning to some degree; it’s a great time for some complementary classroom instructors. Macmillan Publishers, home to some of our favorite children’s authors is having MacKids Streaming Schoolhouse from April 27-30 at 1:00 PM ET. The lessons will include art, science, social studies, language arts and your instructors will be best-selling authors.
Educational illustrated books get a bad rap. When readers get to a certain age they feel that books with too many pictures are babyish. The exceptions to those books are graphic novels, which are more mature in their eyes. Everest, The Remarkable Story of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Nogay is an illustrated book in name only. In reality, the content, intelligence, details, information and length put this more in league with a graphic novel, albeit one that’s bigger in size than a standard comic book.
The Only Woman In The Photo is a book title that really baits the hook. Why was she the only woman in the photo? In this #MeToo era it conjures up all manner of scheming or wily characters that are lurking in or out of the picture frame. In reality, The Only Woman In The Photo has a much larger and impactful scope. This is the story of Frances Perkins, a woman whose work we come across daily due to the time she spent working in the White House.
I firmly believe that kids honestly want to learn. So far as the content, there are those things that they need to learn and those things that they want to learn. In middle school when kids start to earnestly learn about WW II they’re faced with the quandary of studying a horrifying period of human history, yet actually wanting to do it. Teaching or educating kids about this period of time is tricky too because there are so many angles that an author could approach it. Spies, Lies and Disguise, The Daring Tricks and Deeds That Won World War II by Jennifer Swanson with illustrations by Kevin O’Malley is an excellent supplemental text to those kids who already know the basics of WW II and want to learn more.
Imagine that Billy from The Family Circus was all grown up and has become an engineer. From time to time he still reverts back to his habit of drawing where he’s visited around the neighborhood. Machines In Motion, by Tom Jackson with illustrations by Chris Mould has moments that will remind cartoon fans of his exploits, but at a much more educational level. Think of a vehicle that moves people and it’s covered in this book to some extent. It’s a big, over sized book that will grab upper elementary through middle school readers by the hand and make them want to learn about transportation.
Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds, 100 New Ways to See the World by Ian Wright is an unexpected time suck in the best of all possible ways. For example, I’ve never actively thought about those countries or territories that have smaller populations than greater Tokyo. I have also never thought about how the ratio of heavy metal bands per 100 thousand people. Regarding the later query, those in Scandinavia-especially Finland, love some metal, whereas a metal group in central Africa would have a tough time finding an audience. Some of the maps in Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds are serious, some are trivial, but for curious people 10 and up they’ll all be fascinating.
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