STEM | Page 2 of 8 | Daddy Mojo

The Sun and the Planets: A 3-D Solar-System with Pop-Ups!

There are known unknowns. I love that quote from Donald Rumsfeld. It made perfect sense to me because I’m wholly aware that there are numerous fields I know nothing about. My inner-home repair guru might enable me to give it a shot, but most of the time, unless it’s a paint job, I’ll grudgingly call in someone to do the job. The Sun and the Planets: A 3-D Solar System with Pop-Ups!, from the title, would seem to be a very basic children’s book. It’s a pop-up book. What could be higher-level learning about a pop-up book?

Pop-up to lock down outter-space 411

STEMville: The Fast Lane, easy to look at, with a big kid brain

My son’s high school marching band chose F1 as the musical theme for next school year. There will be some Formula 1 props that move around, lots of trumpets, drummers doing their thing and kids with oodles of musical talent. The only thing I know about Formula 1 is that I regret not going to Monaco Gran Prix when I lived outside of Monte Carlo. Wait, I also know that F1 is coming to theaters in 2025 and that the cars are shaped very differently than stock cars. STEMville: The Fast Lane is the latest in the STEMville book series. It manages to entertain ages seven and (way) up, without making it too babyish for the younger readers, while not insulting the older readers who are learning something new.

STEMville: The Fast Lane, a timeless look at F1, Formula One racing in a busy, anthropomorphic town. It makes you curious about it via sharp illustrations and perfectly truncated text.

Resistance is futile

Dinosaurs Can Be Small: A Kid’s Illustrated Book

If you were paying attention, we learned (or were reminded) that birds are descendants of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs Can Be Small is an illustrated book that dinosaur kids need. Those hard dinosaur kids, like the younger brother in Mitchell Vs. The Machines, that kid. If your child or students salivate at the thought of reading or having read to them, descriptions of giant lizards who died out so that the smallest of their brethren could survive, this is for you. This illustrated book sets up the smaller, lesser-known versions by introducing their more well-known, larger versions first. The result is a very curious dinosaur book that will entice dino-kids who think they know it all because they saw Jurassic Park for the dinosaur facts, and not the fact that they run amuck.

You can’t escape the pull of bird’s relatives….can you?

Bird Girl: Inspiring Young Minds through Nature and Art

Why should students care about the life story about a woman who lived more than a century ago and studied birds? Gene Stratton-Porter is well-known in ornithology, but outside of that arena you probably haven’t heard of her. This is one of the things about well-made illustrated books that make the genre so much more than it appears to be. Bird Girl: Gene Stratton-Porter Shares Her Love of Nature with the World doesn’t break any new ground in regards to the story, even though it’s one young audiences don’t know. At it’s core, the book is about finding your way and exploring what you love. Instead, this is a great book because of the unknown variable (Gene Stratton-Porter) and the illustrations by Rebecca Gibbon that are used to tell her life story.

Bird Girl is an illustrated book about a woman that kids won’t know, but whose topic they’ll love and is in a package they’ll enjoy.

Birds, passion, nature and photography

Rube Goldberg’s Big Book: STEM Fun for Young Builders

For a children’s concept that’s seemingly so simple, it took me years to understand it. In theory I should love Rube Goldberg. I love books and the idea of engineering, tinkering with things, plus what’s not to love about Rube Goldberg? It’s like steam punk. You’ve rig up everyday objects and arrange them so that their energy will make an impact on something, like opening a door or squeezing toothpaste out of the tube. It’s a simple act made needlessly, but entertainingly, complex. Rube Goldberg’s Big Book of Building solves the issue that I had with the process on the very first page.

It took Rube Goldberg’s Big Book of Building to finally get it through to me how it works. This oversized, reference book is funny and loaded with can-do, simple machines for all ages.

It’s rubetactular and done with things that already have in the house

Like No Other, illustrated animal book magic for elementary school

Ask an upper-elementary student to do a report on something and they’ll pick the strangest, creepiest, most uncommon one in the book. They might determine who they’ll research by how gross their name is, how ugly they are or how remote their habitat is, thus Brazilian Spitting Death Spider Monkeys of the word unite. Like No Other: Earth’s Coolest One-Of-A-Kind Creatures is an illustrated book for middle-elementary ages through lower-middle school that’s mostly creepy and not too much common.

Like No Other, an illustrated book on strange animals who are the last ones in their family tree uses art and oddity to succeed.

The power of strange animals…..for the win!

Mousetronaut Saves the World is cute and smart for early elementary school

We didn’t read the first or second illustrated book in the Mousetronaut series. Having read Moustronaut Saves the World, it’s not necessary. One of the main Mousetronauts, Meteor has been to space before. That fact is referenced more than a couple of times in the book. He’s been to space before and has just the knowledge set to save Earth from the asteroid on a collision course with the planet. Thankfully, the flight director of the James Webb Space Telescope has a big plan that is dependent on little astronauts.

Mousetronaut Saves the World is an illustrated book with space action, mouse hijinks and wondrous adventure for early elementary ages.

Set phasers to fun for early elementary

The Inventor’s Workshop, STEM-fun for potato chip and cat video kids

The potato chip and cat video test is gauging whether or not a kid will want to read a book based on just one page. Because, much like a potato chip or a cat video, you can’t eat or watch just one. Some might relate better to the M&M or slice of pizza test, but the latter is far too large for repeated snacking, isn’t it? The Inventor’s Workshop: How People and Machines Transformed Each Other is a wonderful book that crosses through reference material, a loose time travelling narrative, countless blurbs of digestible information and detailed illustrations that channel a search for a lanky, bespectacled, poofy-haired, Brit who is hiding in plain sight.

The Inventor’s Workshop is a fun, easy-to-read illustrated book about inventors, their inventions, and how they’ve morphed over time.

Resistence is futile