Candlewick Press | Daddy Mojo

Quentin Blake’s Fantastic Journey, a beautiful trip to imagination via art

I know Quentin Blake’s illustrations; they were in Mad Magazine. No, they were in some other, more trendy and mature magazine that I can’t remember. Blake’s drawings resonate with audiences for those reasons and more. They have the friendly and affable demeanor of something whimsical and appealing to children, yet operating at a higher, more complex level too. Quentin Blake’s Fantastic Journeys lives somewhere between the world of wordless book, cartoon book, sketches for a Redbull commercial, Sergio Aragones compilation and illustrations from a Roald Dahl book that you forgot the name of.

Quentin Blake’s Fantastic Journey features new art from the classic illustrator that’s not burdened by the small space of a book cover.

Wordless art that tells a limitless story

Calculating Chimpanzees is smarter-than-average STEM book that rewards readers

The educator wonk in me loves books that aren’t scared to display their intelligence. The realist in me knows something that’s too smart will scare off some readers. The second book in the Extraordinary Animals series is Calculating Chimpanzees, Brainy Bees, and Other Animals with Mind-Blowing Mathematical Abilities. That’s a mouthful of a title and it has the intellect to back up. Not that a reference, non-fiction book aimed at elementary school readers has a beef with anybody, other than ignorance.

Calculating Chimpanzees, Brainy Bees, and other Animals with Mind-Blowing Mathematical Abilities is STEM for kids that’s accessible, with more of a scientific, narrative flow than some its over-the-top brethren.

This book (and the animals listed therein) are smarter than some of my students

Exploring Nature and Learning: A Review of ‘The Den That Octopus Built’

We’ve been working with our 12-year-old on context clues and how to better understand them. Whenever I’m with high school ELA students I work with them on context clues, albeit in a slightly more direct tone. That could fall under the category of “read the room” or being able to infer what happens in a story due to something else occurring. The Den That Octopus Built is a smart illustrated book that tells a grand story with minute details that older readers will get the first time, and younger audiences will latch onto after one reading.

The Den That Octopus Built is a poetic illustrated book that sucks young readers in with its eight tentacles of knowledge and fun and doesn’t let go.

A smarter, more lyrical, mouse and cookie adventure

Find Out About: Animal Tools, talk about story time for ages 5-8

Find Out About is a book series by Martin Jenkins with illustrations by Jane McGuinness that focus on certain aspects or characteristics of animals.They’re soft, entry-level books about Animal Babies, Animal Homes an Animal Camouflage, with the fourth book being, Animal Tools. All of these use the same gentle, easy-to-follow nature book template that shows young ages an example, and uses font in two different sizes to drive it home. It’s a read-aloud book that will keep those pre-K kids quiet and the K and first grade students chiming in with their own examples of animal tools.

Find Out About: Animal Tools is a gentle illustrated book that leads with illustrations and drives home the non-fiction with short scenes of animals using tools that get’s kids to think.

animal tools, and not the feeble-minded ones

Wildlife Crossings-nature born STEM gets kids thinking without realizing it

The extent to which children think about animals crossing the road stopped when they answered the question about the chicken. And even then that query, and its many derisions, are tiresome, repetitive, and work for the five-year-old audience one time only. Wildlife Crossings: Protecting Animal Pathways Around the World is an illustrated book that will fascinate elementary ages and get them to think, yes actually think about something that they’ve never thought about before.

Wildlife Crossing, an illustrated book that wears its STEM on its sleeve, but allows readers to think for themselves.

But what if the chicken couldn’t cross the road?

Books Aren’t For Eating, illustrated comfort book food on leveling up

Growth is good. That’s not exactly what Gordon Gekko said, but let’s keep that phrase in the context of schooling and growth is good. That can happen in many forms, from not kicking the chair in front of you, to remembering to bring a pencil to those younger ages when they stop chewing on the pages of books. It’s a special day when board books can go the way of the Do Do and those pre-k kids know that the time for that is nigh. Books Aren’t For Eating is silly, illustrated book fun that pre-k and K kids know, but will draw in their own parallels as to things that they know that they shouldn’t be doing at that age.

Books Aren’t For Eating is a basic truth and an old-soul, illustrated book that’ll make those who might be tempted to, stop and think about it.

A message for those who know they shouldn’t, but really want to, until they don’t

Anglerfish The Seadevil of the Deep, fun STEM for one and all

Fish aren’t inherently evil or bad. However, if you were to pose the question of what’s the evilest fish of them all then the Anglerfish would surely be in that mix. If nothing else, then that glowing light that’s on the end of the fishing rod on their head would qualify them by some people’s classification. If you didn’t know what an Anglerfish was before, then that description certainly painted exactly which fish we’re talking about. Anglerfish, The Seadevil of the Deep is an illustrated book by Elaine M. Alexander with illustrations by Fiona Fogg. This is on the STEM side of illustrated books and presents this mysterious fish in a way that will entertain, make kids curious, and drop little nuggets of knowledge that they’ll gleefully share with their friends.

Anglerfish: The Seadevil of the Deep is an illustrated book that examines a mysterious creature and makes it an unlikely hero.

C’mon in, the water’s fine

This is a School will be a staple in elementary school libraries

This is a School is a picture book that seemingly every school librarian and teacher was talking about during the start of the school year. Starting the process of going to school can be quite scary for those young students. Going to school can also be a very exciting time. Sometimes, when the emotions of ‘scared’ and ‘excited’ combine it creates a troublesome experience for educators and parents called chaos. This is a School is a gentle, go-to picture book that introduces elementary school for those ages who are young enough to envision it as a mysterious place of wonder.

This is a School is a picture book that introduces pre-k kids and those slightly older to the wonders, fun and routines that makeup the school day.

This is the pre-k, intro to school book that you’re looking for